‘NO WOMAN IS AN ISLAND.’

Meet the ‘Golden Girl’ of British sports. Olympic athlete, TV presenter and Team England president Denise Lewis OBE shares the highs and lows that have shaped her career.

ON HER CHILDHOOD: I was raised by my mum in Wolverhampton. As a single parent, she worked really hard to give me a happy childhood, juggling jobs as a clerk typist and a carer for the elderly. We were very close, more like big sister, little sister. I started dance lessons when I was four and discovered athletics when I was eight. I remember watching the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games on TV and being blown away by the athletes, the crowds, the atmosphere. I turned to my mum and said ‘I want to do that!’ I joined Wolverhampton & Bilston Athletics Club and I was hooked. My first coach Bill Hand, who is sadly no longer with us, made every training session fun and exciting. He’s the reason I kept going back every week.

By 15, I was training four nights a week and had progressed from county to international level. I looked very different from my friends: my legs were more muscular, I had a six pack. I became very self-conscious. As a teenage girl, the last thing you want is to stand out. It took me a while to gain respect for my body, to understand that it’s there to do a job, to love every curve and sinew.

ON HER BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT: The Commonwealth Games in 1994 was a huge turning point in my career. I was incredibly nervous; I was the 22-year-old newbie alongside established athletes like Linford Christie, Colin Jackson and Sally Gunnell. It was my first major heptathlon win and a moment of self-recognition. I thought, ‘I’m a gold medallist now. I’ve got what it takes. It’s time to get serious.’

ON HER CAREER HIGHLIGHT: Winning gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games was a dream come true. I always put it down to a combination of the right choices, the right team, the right mentality, the right time. It’s hard to describe what that moment felt like; it was like an out-of-body experience, I couldn’t quite take in what was happening. After all the post-race media interviews, I went back to the Olympic Village, had chicken nuggets and fries from McDonald’s, then went to bed at 2am with the gold medal on my pillow. It was like having a newborn baby – I didn’t want to let it out of my sight.

ON HER TOUGHEST MOMENT: The 2004 Athens Olympic Games didn’t go my way at all. I’d split with my coach, I had a two-year-old daughter at home and I was suffering from an injury. I shouldn’t have been there but I felt enormous pressure to defend my title. After a disappointing run of results at the Games, I pulled out. I was physically and emotionally devastated and felt like a huge failure. I was desperate to return home but I couldn’t get a flight back to the UK for a couple of days, so I locked myself in a room and saw no one. Towards the end of that year, my grandmother got sick and she passed away in 2005. That’s when I decided to retire. I just didn’t have any fight left in me. I’d had enough.

ON RETIRING:  I went through a spell of feeling lost and low. It took me a while to separate the performer from the person and build myself up again. I had to accept that just because I wasn’t out there winning medals any more, it didn’t mean I’d become insignificant. I wanted to use my experience to inspire the next generation of athletes so I became an ambassador for Youth Sport Trust. I also received a call from Lord Sebastian Coe, one of my childhood idols, asking me to travel to Singapore as part of the London 2012 presentation team. I didn’t think I was capable or in the right headspace but this was a chance to do something great for my country and, lo and behold, we won the bid. I’m currently president of Team England, a BBC sports presenter and a mother of four – constantly spinning plates!

‘I thought, ‘I’m a gold medallist now. I’ve got what it takes. It’s time to get serious.’

‘I thought, ‘I’m a gold medallist now. I’ve got what it takes. It’s time to get serious.’

‘I thought, ‘I’m a gold medallist now. I’ve got what it takes. It’s time to get serious.’

ON STAYING SANE: The Calm app has been a godsend for me. I try to do the 10-minute Mindfulness Meditation every evening to take stock of the day and wind down. I love a good boxset – I recently binge-watched Peaky Blinders and Money Heist – and I enjoy cooking Jamaican food. My signature dish is oxtail with butter beans, served with rice, peas and a side of plantain. It’s the most delicious thing on the planet.

ON HER STYLE: I tend to go for elegant, structured pieces and I’m always drawn to unexpected details, such as contrasting stitching or unusual necklines. I want my outfits to be effortless yet empowering. In sports, we talk about ‘marginal gains’, the theory that small yet significant improvements can lead to monumental results. The same is true with workwear. It can transform how you feel about yourself.

ON THE FUTURE OF WORK: As women, we’ve had to fight for every opportunity. In athletics, we were excluded from many Olympic events because we were deemed to be ‘physically incapable’: triple jump was only added in 1996; hammer throw and pole vault in 2000; and steeplechase in 2008. In business, we’re still struggling with gender parity – but at least it’s on the boardroom agenda. Whether forced or organic, conversations about diversity and inclusion are finally taking place. The first step is acknowledging that the system has been fundamentally broken for years.