3 hours ago
6
Denise Lewis, who won gold for Team GB in the heptathlon at the Olympic Games in Sydney, 2000, has wowed fans in a new lingerie photoshoot.
The 53-year-old has been carrying out punditry duty with the BBC in recent years, but has quit well after a decade in the chair following last summer's Olympic Games in Paris.
During her competitive career, she also won the World Championships in 1998 and the European Championships in 1995.
The mother of four, however, has now swapped the microphone for the camera and stunned in a photoshoot that sees her pose in black lingerie for Coco de Mer.
Coco de Mer is a lingerie and sexual wellness brand and dressed Lewis up in black silk, lace bras, as well as bodysuits, suspenders, camis and knickers.
The former athletics star spoke earlier this year of feeling like she was 'back', and has now stripped down for all to see her newfound confidence.
British Olympic hero Denise Lewis has stunned in a lingerie photoshoot after quitting the BBC
The 2000 gold medalist stripped down to black silk, lace bras, as well as bodysuits, suspenders, camis and knickers
She posed alongside items that she would have used during her competitive days, such as a javelin and shot put
Speaking to The Times about the shoot, Lewis said: 'I'd never done a lingerie shoot. Most of my life I've been photographed in sports kit. But Coco really does lean into what I feel and what I'm about, empowering women to be sensual, powerful and strong.
'It's celebrating my body, because I've worked for it. To have a woman over 50 saying, "Actually, this is me. This is what I can be", is so liberating.
'Hopefully, it encourages more women to feel they are more than the labels attached to them - working woman, mother. You can be these things and not lose the essence of who you are.'
'It's like competitiveness and being a woman can't coexist. We always have to be soft and not say what you want. But now I'm in my fifties, I'm going to tell it like it is.'
Lewis is also the president of UK Athletics and posed with a shot-put like object in the shoot - as well as a hurdle and javelin - just as she did for real 25 years ago.
She has not ruled out returning to punditry in the future, but, for now, is enjoying her new life.
Denise, brought up by her mother in Wolverhampton, is said to have separated from her husband, music mogul Steve Finan O'Connor, as The Mail on Sunday reported last year.
She did not wear her wedding ring as she presented the BBC's Olympic coverage last summer and friends say he had moved out of the family home in Buckinghamshire.
She said of the shoot: 'It's celebrating my body, because I've worked for it'
Lewis, who also won the World and European Championships, recently split from her husband
Both were devastated by the death last year of One Direction's Liam Payne, who Steve managed and who Denise called 'a very firm family friend'.
'Athletics is very inclusive. But as one of the first black female pundits on the BBC, I had to grow into my role,' she said. 'It's one thing being accepted as Olympic champion and another being intelligent on the other side of the lens.
'Look at the vitriol Alex Scott has had, and other women when they comment on men's sport. Though it's not "men's" sport, because we all do sport.
'I've built enough resilience to know that I'll get through whatever comes my way. This will be the new me.'
