AFP - As Britain prepares to welcome the Olympics to London in 2012, there is a strong sporting flavour to the New Year Honours List announced on Saturday.

Golf prodigy Rory McIlroy, who this year became the youngest US Open champion for 88 years at the age of 22, became an MBE, or Member of the Order of the British Empire.

"Many people on the honours list have made huge personal sacrifices and contributed significantly to society during their lives," McIlroy said. "I feel very fortunate to be in their company."

Fellow Northern Irish golfer Darren Clarke, winner of the British Open in 2011, was awarded an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire).

Nigel Mansell, who won the Formula One motor racing world crown in 1992, gets a CBE for his charity work helping children and young people.

Veteran cricket umpire Dickie Bird was given an OBE, while there was an MBE for Scottish rugby union player Chris Paterson -- who retired from the game in 2011 after winning a record 109 caps for his country.

Actress Helena Bonham Carter received a CBE, or Commander of the Order of the British Empire award -- one step below a knighthood -- after a very successful year that included a widely praised performance in "The King's Speech", the hit film about King George VI.

She dedicated the honour to her father, who spent the last years of his life severely disabled after an operation to remove a brain tumour went wrong, and joked that it could lead to changes at home.

"I am wondering, does it mean I get to command? Because at the moment it's my four-year-old daughter who does the commanding in our household. Must inform her of the change in situation," she said.

Veteran comedian Ronnie Corbett, best known for the 1970s-80s television sketch show "The Two Ronnies", receives a CBE for services to entertainment and charity.

Clive James, the Australian-born author, broadcaster and critic, was also awarded a CBE.

Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, the Russian-born 2010 Nobel Prize-winning professors of physics at the University of Manchester in northwest England, were awarded knighthoods.

In the year that Apple founder Steve Jobs died, the company's British-born designer Jonathan Ive was knighted with a KBE (Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for his work in shaping the look of the iMac, the iPod and the iPhone.

Two big names behind television formats that have spread around the world -- Peter Bazalgette of Endemol, the company behind "Big Brother", and Paul Smith of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" creator Celador -- also won honours.

Criminal convictions generally exclude people from receiving gongs. However, Gerald Ronson, 72, the man who brought self-service petrol stations to Britain in the 1960s, was awarded a CBE for services to charity despite being convicted for his role in the Guinness affair over 20 years ago. He served six months of a one-year jail sentence, but bounced back to become a property tycoon.

Alex Crawford, the Sky News television reporter who achieved fame by reporting from the war-torn streets of Libya in 2011, said she was surprised to have been awarded an OBE.

"I am staggered and honoured and can't quite believe this is not a prank thought up by one of my more mischievous colleagues," she said.

Honours lists are produced twice a year, at New Year and to coincide with Queen Elizabeth II's official birthday in June.