Rebecca Adlington
by Craig Lord, the Times
Rebecca Adlington is a winner. No, I don?t mean in the pool. That much we know from Beijing. We know that the 19-year-old from Mansfield near Nottingham in England can swim 16 laps of an Olympic pool faster than Janet Evans, faster than anyone else ever has. We know she can rip 1.53sec off Katie Hoff and out-sprint world-record-holder Federica Pellegrini and the pack with a 29.18sec last 50m split on the way to Olympic gold in the 400m.
I?m thinking more ?winner in life?. Britain has taken Adlington to its bosom. She is the teenager of the summer back home, a talent who charmed her nation with an outlook on life that proved a point: ploughing up and down a pool for all your teenage years is no impediment to developing a winning personality.
