A HERO'S WELCOME AND NEW SHOES FOR GOLDEN GIRL ADLINGTON

She had been promised the shoes by her hometown mayor if she returned victorious from Beijing.

And last night – as 15,000 proud residents of Mansfield, Notts, waited to cheer her on an open-topped bus tour – mayor Tony Eggington kept his promise.

The £460 shoes were appropriately made of watersnake skin.

She joked: “The shoes weren’t the first thing I thought about on winning. I was just so overwhelmed.”

She had earlier arrived in the UK in a gold-nosed jumbo jet and been picked up in a golden Rolls-Royce.

The mayor presents the young Olympian with a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes

Rebecca, 19, is the first British swimmer to win two Olympic gold medals since 1908. She won the 400m freestyle and then the 800m  in a world-record time.