BRITAIN'S triumphant Olympic gold medallists - headed by Kelly Holmes, Matthew Pinsent and Tanni Grey-Thompson - are celebrating their inclusion in the Queen's New Year Honours list published today.

Holmes, who won the 800m and 1,500m at Athens to become the first Briton for 84 years to achieve an Olympic middle-distance double, is made a dame.

Rower Matthew Pinsent, who led Britain's coxless four to the narrowest of victories and became one of only five athletes to win gold at four successive Olympic Games, gets a knighthood.

There are awards for the other British gold medallists - including a damehood for Tanni Grey-Thompson, who lives in Redcar and is regarded as Britain's greatest-ever Paralympic athlete, with 11 gold medals, two of which she clinched at Athens.

She said it was "pretty cool" to be made a dame, saying: "Just call me Tanni."

She added: "I still can't believe it. I never ever, ever dreamt I would get something like this."

In the entertainment world, there is an MBE for Sunderland-born veteran comedian Bobby Knoxall, who wrote Sunderland's FA Cup Final Song in 1973.

Honours also go to pop svengali Pete Waterman, rock icon Roger Daltry, veteran actors Eric Sykes and Anna Massey, and TV sitcom star Geoffrey Palmer.