Paralympics gold medallists to be honoured at Buckingham Palace
Paralympic track and field athlete Sabrina Fortune who won gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics will be among those to be rewarded.
Two athletes are set to be be honoured at Buckingham Palace after they won gold medals at the 2024 Paris Paralympics.
Paralympic track and field athlete Sabrina Fortune, who won the gold medal in shot put with a world record of 15.12 metres, was made an MBE in the King’s New Year Honours 2025.
The 27-year-old from Wales is to receive her award from the Prince of Wales during an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday, alongside fellow Paralympian David Ellis, 38, a visually impaired athlete who won gold in the men’s paratriathlon.
They were both made MBEs for services to athletics and paratriathlon respectively.
Forty-seven other people are due to receive their honours at the royal residence on Wednesday, including shipwreck hunter David Mearns, who is currently searching the seabed off the Algerian coast for the anchor of the HMT Empire Windrush, which brought Caribbean migrants to the UK in the 1940s.
Mr Mearns was made an OBE for services to the location and recovery of historic shipwrecks.
He has located 29 major wrecks in a career spanning 35 years, including the 16th century ship The Esmeralda, from Vasco da Gama’s fleet, and Ernest Shackleton’s Quest ship, which went down off the coast of Canada in 1922.
He holds the world record for the deepest shipwreck ever found, the German blockade runner Rio Grande, which was lying at a depth of nearly 19,000ft.
He also located the light aircraft carrying footballer Emiliano Sala which disappeared over the English Channel in 2019.
Richard Finney, the moustache expert whose home-made grooming wax was used to keep David Suchet’s moustache in place as detective Hercule Poirot in the classic ITV drama, is also to be honoured for services to international trade and to charity.
The founder of Captain Fawcett, a Norfolk-based manufacturer of men’s grooming and hair care products which now makes exports of £1.5m a year, came up with the recipe for his star product while working as a boom operator in the film industry.
He is also being honoured for his charity work in the fields of men’s mental health, homelessness, and children’s welfare.
