NEW Milton Town Council is to honour local swimmers Alice Tai and Mikey Jones after they won three Paralympic medals between them in Rio – including a gold apiece.

Recognition of their “outstanding achievements” will include two gold-painted seats in the Recreation Ground and a civic reception with the swimmers as guests of honour.

Jones led home GB team-mate Jonathan Fox for a British one-two in the S7 400m freestyle, while Tai added to her individual S10 100m backstroke bronze with gold and a world record in the 34-point medley relay.

Jones, who has cerebral palsy and was making his international debut in Rio, recorded a winning time of 4:45.78, beating former world record holder Fox by 3.22sec with Norway’s bronze medallist Andreas Bjornstad a further 4.4sec adrift.

It was a poignant moment for the 22-year-old Loughborough University student, whose father Bernard died just two months ago after a long illness.

Jones, who had a lock of his dad’s hair tucked in his tracksuit pocket on the podium, said: “My dad passed away with 58 days to go to Rio so that race was as much for him as me.

“It’s not been an easy build into the meet because of that. It was hard to take initially but he has supported me for all these years and he would have wanted me to have swum my best.”

Mum Shirley, who also had a lock of Bernard’s hair with her in Rio, was pictured on TV dancing in the grandstand following her son’s success.

Jones made the finals of all three of his events, coming sixth in the S7 100m freestyle in 1:04.69 and seventh in the 50m freestyle in 29.82.

Bournemouth Collegiate School academy swimmer Tai – Dorset’s first Paralympic swimmer since amputee Tony Stickland won silver and bronze in 1984 – gave Britain a flying start in the medley relay with the second fastest 100m backstroke split, 1:10.28.

Claire Cashmore (breaststroke), Stephanie Slater (butterfly) and Stephanie Millward (freestyle) completed the task with a world record time of 4:45.28, beating nearest challengers Australia by 0.62sec.

Tai, 17, who underwent 14 operations between the ages of 20 weeks and 12 years after being born with two club feet, said: “I feel so lucky to be part of this relay and I’ve loved every minute of it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever screamed so much. Everyone swam awesome.”

Earlier, Tai narrowly missed out on her second bronze of the Games as she anchored teammates Millward, Amy Marren and Susie Rodgers to fourth place in the 34-point 4x100m freestyle relay.

She won bronze in the S10 100m backstroke and came seventh in the 100m butterfly final in 1:11.92 and 11th in the 100m freestyle heats in 1:04.32.