Gold medal rower Matt Langridge tweeted: “think there might be someone famous on my flight, we have a welcome party #GreattobeBAck”.
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Flying home on a chartered British Airways flight – BA2016 – the team were shown singing “God Save The Queen” ahead of take-off – with BA providing 77 extra bottles of champagne on a special plane, emblazoned with “victoRIOus” – and also took the opportunity to post selfies from the cockpit and gathered with their team-mates in the cabin.
Sixty per cent of Team GB’s medallists at the Rio Olympics – including cyclist Laura Trott, runner Mo Farah and heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill – were educated at comprehensive schools, research conducted by the Sutton Trust social mobility charity reveals.
Many will feel their lives will now be somewhat empty without mammoth sporting performances from homegrown heroes to watch on TV, bit there is of course the Paralympic Games to look forward to.
Team GB’s stars have received the royal seal of approval for their Rio performance as Downing Street announced there will be no cap on honours for Olympic medal winners.
Britain won a total of 67 medals at the Games – two more than the remarkable haul in London four years ago.
China finished second to the U.S.in London and missed out on second in Rio by one gold medal to Great Britain. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Britain won just one gold from a paltry 15 total medals, good for 34th place in the standings, tucked between Ethiopia and Belarus. But the sports-mad nation outdid itself while hosting the Sydney Games in 2000, winning a record 58 medals (16 gold).
Jackie O’Sullivan, from the National Lottery, said: “National Lottery funding has given Adam Peaty, Joe Clarke and other Rio medallists support to be the best in the world”.
Creating much buzz around this special flight, British Airways has been regularly updating tweeple with photos and the live flight plan, so that everyone can track when the beloved athletes touchdown in London.
Other heroes of Rio, including cycling golden couple Jason Kenny and Laura Trott, had already arrived back in the United Kingdom before the official Team GB flight. “I don’t think we have bought a single drink since we have come back”. Manchester in northern England is displacing London for the bus tour this year, a chance to display the gold, silver and bronze medals that have briefly reunited a nation divided by the referendum vote to leave the European Union in June.
The spokeswoman said that as well as the medal-winners themselves, others involved in Team GB – such as their coaches – would also be in line for gongs.
Congratulating them, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry said the team was an “inspiration to us all, young and old”.
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Prime Minister Theresa May said: “It will be a celebration fit for heroes – and rightly so, because that is exactly what they are”.
