WEST FIFE Paralympic hero Owen Miller has been made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honours list.

The 30-year-old, a former pupil at Woodmill High School, claimed a sensational gold medal in the T20 1500 metres race at the Games in Tokyo, where he was making his Paralympic debut.

He has now been made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to athletics following his success, in a list that includes Olympic athletes such as Kirkcaldy's gold-medal winning swimmer, Kathleen Dawson, who is made an MBE; and fellow swimmer Duncan Scott, who is made an OBE after becoming the first British athlete to win four medals at an Olympic games with a gold and three silvers.

Owen, who competes for Fife AC, had targeted a medal prior to setting out for Tokyo, telling the Press that he was going into it in the "best shape" of his career, having set a new PB of three minutes and 52.09 seconds in July’s BMC Gold Standard Races in Stretford, Manchester.

In a thrilling race, Owen's time of 3:54.57 saw him finish clear of Alexandr Rabotnitskii, of the Russian Paralympic Committee, and Italy’s Ndiaga Dieng, to win gold, and returned home to West Fife to a heroes reception.

During a visit to the track at Pitreavie Athletics Centre, where he spoke to the Press, Owen said that he "just wanted to show everybody I could do it".

"I felt really good and I just kept myself together. I just ran my own race to the best of my ability," he said at the time.

“As soon as I got to the (final) 150 (metres), that was it. I realised that was going to be it for me; I was going to be coming home and be a Paralympic champion.

“I just wanted to show everybody I could do it.

“I had a smile on my face and I lit up like Forrest Gump, and just went for the line!

“It felt really exciting. I was quite nervous about it as well because it was my first major Paralympics.

“I took my crown, now that’s me, Paralympic champion!”

Following his success, Owen was also named as Scottish Athletics' Para Athlete of the Year Award at their annual awards ceremony in October.