Background
Applegate was born in Great Yarmouth in 1996. Applegate, who has an autism spectrum disorder, began swimming at a young age after her mother took her to Lowestoft and Oulton Broad Swimming Club.
Applegate was born in Great Yarmouth in 1996. Applegate, who has an autism spectrum disorder, began swimming at a young age after her mother took her to Lowestoft and Oulton Broad Swimming Club.
Applegate competes in the S14 classification for swimmers with intellectual disabilities, mainly freestyle and backstroke preferring shorter distances. Educated at Ormiston Venture Academy, by the age of 13 she was setting regional records and was selected for a United Kingdom sporting talent programme. Towards the end of 2011 she was showing potential as an international competitive swimmer, setting the second fastest world Paralympic time in the 50m and the third fastest in the 200m freestyle at the Wales Winter Open.
In 2012 she entered her first overseas tournament at the Berlin Open, taking two bronzes, in the 50m and 100m freestyle.
Applegate then followed her success in Berlin by taking the gold in the 200m freestyle at the 2012 British Swimming Championship in March. In taking the gold she not only finished four seconds inside the Great Britain Paralympic qualifying time but also set a new British record.
She took silver in the S14 50m and 100m freestyle races, and then on the last day of the tournament, in a very tight race against Ireland"s Bethany Firth, she took gold with a time of 2:15.23. Her results over the prior tournaments saw Applegate qualify for the 2012 Summer Paralympics in both the S14 200m freestyle and 100m backstroke.
In the Paralympics, Applegate"s first event was the 100m backstroke on 31 August.
She qualified in third place in the heats and then swam a personal best of 1:09.58 in the final to finish just outside the medals in fourth place. In her favoured 200m freestyle, Applegate qualified for the final in first place with a time of 2:14.31. In 2013 Applegate again represented Great Britain when she travelled to Montreal to compete in the IPC World Championships.
She also took silver in the 200m medley and bronze in the 100m freestyle.
She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (Administration Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to swimming.