New Year Honours: Figures from football and tennis to bobsleigh cited

Ann Jones becomes a CBE for her service to tennis since winning Wimbledon in 1969, and the England women’s rugby team captain Katy McLean, is made an MBE.

There is a hat trick of awards for leading figures in Yorkshire’s world of sports.

Bedale-based Bruce Ropner, honorary vice president of the British Bobsleigh Association, receives an OBE for 54 years’ service to the sport and particularly for his role in youth training.

A former winner of the British two-man bobsleigh championship, Mr Ropner, now 80, remains as invested as ever in the sport. Among his proudest achievements as a coach is talent-spotting Mica McNeill, a current member of the Great Britain bobsleigh team who is aiming for a place at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Mr Ropner instructed McNeill during a school trip at Camp Hill, the outdoor adventure centre run by his son Robert in North Yorkshire. She went on to win a silver medal at the inaugural Youth Winter Olympic Games in 2012.

Mr Ropner said he was “absolutely thrilled” to be honoured.

“It’s a wonderful thing to have and totally unexpected,” he said.

He started out in the sport at the age of 21 after striking up what has proved to be a lasting friendship with the then captain of the British Olympic bobsleigh team, Keith Schellenberg.

Mr Ropner joined his friend on the British team in 1959 before deciding to go it alone. He formed a two-man team with his late cousin Jeremy and together they clinched the two-man British championship title in 1962. He retired from competition when his wife gave birth.

“Since then I have been concentrating on getting the youth of our country into the sport. It’s a rather less usual sport in that it’s not like football, for instance, where you can just get a ball and play.”

Stuart Cummings, of Ilkley, the former match official director at the Rugby Football League becomes an MBE for services to the sport. Mr Cummings has gone on to become development and education manager at British Weightlifting,

Malcolm Kielty, of Halifax, is also an MBE, for services to wheelchair rugby league. He is largely responsible for introducing the sport to England after it was established in France in 2000.

Mr Kielty, 63, who has post-polio syndrome and is a full-time wheelchair user, was approached to coach the sport while training people to play wheelchair basketball at the Cardinals Wheelchair Sports Club in Cleckheaton.

He said: “As a group we trained off the back of some email rules translated into English, ready for us to receive the French in 2005. This ‘tour’ soon developed into a reciprocal arrangement partnering up with a new team formed in Wigan after we had played them at wheelchair basketball. UK development began to spread from there.”

England were crowned world champions in 2008 and next season, there are expected to be 16 teams competing in the national league.

On being honoured, Mr Kielty said: “It has blown me away. It’s only when you sit back and think about it afterwards that it dawns on you what it’s all about.”