GOLD medal winning Olympian Denise Lewis stunned with a new look as she swapped the BBC studio for suspenders and raunchy underwear.
Lewis, 53, won gold in the Heptahlon at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, while also becoming the world champion in 1998 and European champion in 1995.
Denise Lewis has stunned with a new look for Coco de Mer[/caption]
She posed in suspenders and raunchy underwear[/caption]
Lewis left the BBC last year[/caption]
She said she ‘felt like a goddess’ during the shoot[/caption]
After her glittering athletics career, she took up a career in TV.
She was a mainstay on the BBC‘s coverage of the Olympics and other major athletics events for well over a decade.
In all this time, Lewis has also become a mother of four, the youngest of whom she had at 46.
However, after stepping down from her role at the broadcaster following last summer’s Paris Olympics, she has decided to celebrate her body with a striking collaboration with Coco de Mer.
Pictures taken by the lingerie and sexual wellness brand saw Lewis posing in black silk, lace bras, knickers, camis, bodysuits and suspenders.
Speaking to The Times about the shoot, Lewis said she ” felt like a goddess” after explaining, “at 53 it was my first time in a suspender belt”.
Lewis has spent 25 years searching for a new identity following her retirement from athletics, and admitted her first doubts of purpose came on the very same night she won Olympic gold.
She said: “I’d achieved what I set out to do, but immediately there was that feeling of an abyss. What do I do next?”
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But Lewis, now also the president of UK Athletics, has found her feet as a history maker and legend.
And she explained how she now wants to lean into the message of “empowering women to be sensual, powerful and strong”.
She 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.”
Reflecting on her broadcasting career, Lewis revealed she did find it difficult to move from the inclusive environment offered by athletics to becoming the one of the first black female pundits on the BBC.
She said: “Athletics is very inclusive. But as one of the first black female pundits on the BBC, I had to grow into my role.
“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 [the footballer turned pundit] has had, and other women when they comment on men’s sport. Though it’s not ‘men’s’ sport, because we all do sport.”
Lewis has not closed the door to returning to punditry work in the future, but says she has other things to keep her busy for now.
She added: “I’ve built enough resilience to know that I’ll get through whatever comes my way.
“And then there’s new, sexy Denise Lewis in lace and suspenders. She smiles.
“This will be the new me.”
Lewis won Olympic gold in the Heptathlon in 2000[/caption]
