Sports stars recall meeting the Queen: From Lewis Hamilton’s lunch to Anthony Joshua’s ‘flirting’

The Queen handed out hundreds of honours to sports stars and every single recipient has a story to tell.

MBEs, OBEs and CBEs have all been awarded to some of our biggest sporting heroes for their achievements, resulting in the recipients making the trip to Buckingham Palace to see Her Majesty.

Metro.co.uk looks back at some of the biggest names to have met the Queen when receiving their honours, or at different events of importance, and the brilliant stories and memories they have of their encounter.

The seven-time F1 world champion opened up about a lunch he had been invited to with the monarch a year after being awarded his MBE in 2008.

He revealed how he initially got a dressing down from the Queen over his table manners before a butler accidentally stepped on one of her dogs.

He said: ‘There was about eight of us and I turned up after the Brazilian Grand Prix and I walked in and saw the seating plan and I was sat right next to her.

‘So I was excited, this is cool. So I sat down and she was to my right and I started to talk to her and she was like: “No, you speak that way first and I’ll speak that way, and I’ll come back to you.”

‘She spoke to the guy next to her for like five minutes and then she spent the rest of the time talking to me. It was really, really cool.

‘I had the best lunch with her, it was amazing, one of the butlers I think stepped on the dog.

‘I just always remember this dog yelling out because someone stepped on him accidentally.’

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