Swimming sensation Linda Ludgrove, of Sheppey, tells of Tokyo Olympics heartache

She was one of Britain’s biggest stars of the 1960s - a sporting sensation with her own Madame Tussaud’s waxwork.

But for almost 60 years, swimmer Linda Ludgrove has been left in limbo over a mysterious decision to drop her from an Olympic final - a move she believes prevented her from eventually being made an MBE.

Meeting the 76-year-old at her smallholding on Sheppey, you’d have no clue that ‘Little Linda’ had been one of Britain’s most recognisable faces.

A teenage champion swimmer she’d have trouble walking down the road without being stopped by members of the public - she twice came second in the BBC’s Sport Personality of the Year contest.

She hung out with music, TV and film stars and became friendly with members of England’s 1966 World Cup-winning football team.

But almost six decades on since the height of her fame, the mum-of-three is restless to resolve an incident which still makes her angry today.

It goes back to when she was competing at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics where she’d helped GB swimmers get to the final of the medley competition.

But on the eve of swimming for gold, the then 16-year-old was informed she’d been dropped from the team for “disciplinary reasons”.

She recalled: “I was sitting at the breakfast table when all the coaches and the captains of the men’s and the women’s swimming teams came over and told me they were kicking me out the team. I was shocked - I didn’t know what I had done. It was nasty.

“They mentioned staying out drinking but we were too young and there was nowhere to go. We stayed at an old army base. We just sat in a hall with a record player. Maybe my face just didn’t fit?”

Back home in south London, her dad wrote to the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA) to try and get to