ame Denise Lewis, Olympic heptathlon gold medallist turned BBC athletics pundit (until she was recently obliged to step down), is flicking through some photographs of herself. They’re black and white. Lewis, always beautiful, looks gorgeous. They’re also extremely sexy, depicting Lewis — variously — in black silk and lace bras, knickers, camis, bodysuits…
“And suspenders!” Lewis exclaims. “At 53 it was my first time in a suspender belt. I felt like a goddess.”
Raunchy Lewis wasn’t an incarnation I’d seen coming. Watching her on telly, dissecting javelin technique beside Gabby Logan and fellow dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, her vibe has always been what my Gen Z children would call “very mindful, very demure”. On paper, she comes across as the archetypal good girl. Brought up by a single mother in Wolverhampton, she was 25 when she became European champion and 28 when she won gold at the Sydney Olympics. After retiring in 2005, she launched a TV career. She’s now president of UK Athletics. In addition, she has four children — the youngest of whom, Troy, was born when she was 46.
Yet for much of this time, she was unsure who she was if she was no longer chasing gold, struggling with motherhood. Now, after decades of keeping everyone else happy, she’s decided it’s time to showcase herself in an entirely new light: hence the undies shoot for the lingerie and sexual wellness brand Coco de Mer, whose previous ambassadors include Helena Christensen and Pamela Anderson.
