ISLE of Wight-born British athletics legend Kelly Sotherton has added the MBE to her glowing list of honours and Olympic Games achievements.

The 43 year old heptathlete was announced as an MBE recipient in the Queen’s New Year Honours earlier this week.

Kelly, who now lives in Birmingham, described the honour as “really nice”.

Recognised for her services to track and field athletics and the promotion of women’s sport, it has been a whirlwind past few months for Kelly after she was inducted into England Athletics Hall of Fame in October.

The induction celebrated her outstanding contribution as a sporting star.

Isle of Wight County Press:

Kelly was a multi-event specialist who achieved three Olympic bronze medals for heptathlon and 4x400m, a 2006 Commonwealth Games heptathlon gold medal in Melbourne, as well as silver medal success in world and European indoor pentathlon and world championship bronze in Osaka, Japan.

Kelly’s two bronze medals from the 2008 Beijing Olympics were awarded several years later following revelations Russian and Ukrainian competitors had cheated using performance enhancing drugs.

The Islander retired after failing to recover from a back problem in time to qualify for the heptathlon at the 2012 London Olympics.

Since then she has worked to help others into sport and she established the British Athletics Athlete to Coach programme.

Recently, she became a member of the British Athletics coaching teams at the European Junior Championships in Sweden, and the European Athletics Combined Events Super League in Ukraine, with a bronze medal won — the first medal Britain had ever gained at the event.

Kelly is a performance coach at Wasps rugby club, serves on the International Association of Athletics Federations’s women’s committee and is a board member with Sport’s People Think Tank, which recently reviewed the under-representation of black, Asian and minority ethnic coaches and managers in football.

Don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.