Ellie: I was adopted but I traced my birth mum & we chatted for 5 hours

Search to know 'whole of me'

- MATT ROPER

Paralympian Ellie Simmonds has revealed for the first time that she was adopted when she was three months old but has now been reunited with her birth mother.

The gold medal-winning swimmer last year embarked on a search for her blood family after finding out she had been put up for adoption at 10 days old.

She was devastated to discover her mum wished she had died at birth after medics told her Ellie would be ridiculed and seen as "evil" and "stupid".

But it didn't stop Ellie, 28, who was born with achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism, from wanting to find her.

And after an emotional five-hour first meeting, she reveals the pair are still in touch and rebuilding their relationship.

"Until now, it's never emotionally affected me, it never made me feel rejected or ask why do my birth parents not want me," she says in a new ITV documentary. "I've been so focussed on the future and never thought about it."

Ellie, who won five gold medals during her career in Beijing, London and Rio, has often talked about her parents as her biggest supporters but never before revealed how the couple, who have four other children, adopted her as a baby.

But when "questions started to bubble up" she decided to go in search of answers, beginning with photos and documents that her parents, of Aldridge West Mids, had kept for her.

"One of the reasons for being given up for adoption is dwarfism and maybe it can be a factor of why my personality is like it is, because of that rejection at the start, she explains.

With the help of a specialist social worker, Ellie first got hold of the files relating to her birth.