Denise Lewis

Denise Lewis

Personal information
Nationality	England Great Britain
Born	27 August 1972 (1972-08-27) West Bromwich
Height	1.73 metres (5 ft 8 in)
Weight	64 kilograms (140 lb)
Sport
Sport	Heptathlon
Club	Birchfield Harriers
Coached by	Charles van Commenee
Retired	2005
Medal record Women's Athletics Competitor for Great Britain Olympic Games Gold 2000 Sydney Heptathlon Bronze 1996 Atlanta Heptathlon World Championships Silver 1997 Athens Heptathlon Silver 1999 Sevilla Heptathlon European Championships Gold 1998 Budapest Heptathlon Competitor for England Commonwealth Games Gold 1994 Victoria Heptathlon Gold 1998 Kuala Lumpur Heptathlon

Denise Lewis OBE (born 27 August 1972, in West Bromwich, England) is a retired British athlete who specialised in the heptathlon. She won the gold medal in the heptathlon at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Since retiring from athletics she has undertaken various television and media work, and is now a regular athletics pundit for BBC television.

Athletics career

2000 Olympics

The first day of the 2000 Summer Olympics heptathlon was 23 September. In the first event, Lewis recorded 13.23 seconds for the 100 metres hurdles to be in second place behind the world champion, Eunice Barber, who had finished in 12.97 seconds. Ghada Shouaa, the 1996 Olympic champion, pulled-out after only 20 metres of her heat.

After a poor performance in the high jump of only 1.75 m, some way off her personal best, Lewis was in eighth place, 152 points behind Barber who had increased her lead. In the third event, the shot put, Lewis recorded a distance of 15.55 m, placing her second. 30 points behind Natallia Sazanovich and 45 points ahead of former world champion Sabine Braun. Barber's distance of 11.27 m put her in eighth place.

In the final event of the day, the 200 metres, Lewis recorded a time of 24.34 sec. Sabine Braun's time placed put her in sixth position. A strong run by Natalya Roshchupkina moved her from sixth position to second, pushing Lewis into third place.

At the end of the first day, the points scored were:

1. Natallia Sazanovich, BLR: 3903
2. Natalya Roshchupkina, RUS: 3872
3. Denise Lewis, GBR: 3852
4. Urszula Włodarczyk, POL: 3805
5. Yelena Prokhorova, RUS: 3771
6. Sabine Braun, GER: 3770
7. Eunice Barber, FRA: 3707
8. Karin Specht-Ertl, GER: 3697

The first event on the second day was the long jump. Lewis's best jump was 6.48 m, marginally behind Yelena Prokhorova and Sazanovich. Eunice Barber, struggling with injury, withdrew after this event. In event six, the javelin, Lewis achieved a throw of 50.19 m. With her closest rivals some way further back she moved into first place with Sazanovich 63 points behind in second place and Prokhorova in third a further 83 points behind.

In the final event, the 800 m, Lewis ran with the lower part of her left leg bandaged for a calf and Achilles tendon injury, aiming to stay close enough to the race leaders to maintain her points advantage. Prokhorova won the race convincingly and when Lewis crossed the line behind Sazanovich it was not, at first, clear if Lewis's time of 2:16.83 was enough to retain first place. After the individual points had been calculated, it was announced that Lewis had won with a total of 6584 points. Prokhorova was second with 6531 (53 points behind Lewis) and Sazanovich was third with 6527 (4 points behind Prokhorova).

2004 Olympics

At the 2004 Olympics, Lewis was suffering from a number of injuries and withdrew from the competition after the long jump. Team-mate and training partner Kelly Sotherton took bronze.

Personal bests

• 100 m hurdles - 13.13 seconds (1,105 points)
• 200 m - 24.10 seconds (971)
• 800 m - 2 min 12.20 seconds (933)
• High jump - 1.87 m (1,067)
• Long jump - 6.69 m (1,069)
• Shot put - 16.12 m (936)
• Javelin - 51.48 m (889)

• Heptathlon PB - 6831 points Talence, France 2000 (theoretical best 6970 points - adding all her PBs together)

Awards and recognition

In the 2000 New Year Honours, Lewis was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

In 2000 she was also given the Freedom of the City of Wolverhampton.

In 2011, she was inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame.

Alongside Kelly Holmes, Paula Radcliffe and Christine Ohuruogu, Lewis is one of the current "golden girls" of British athletics and has twice, 1998 and 2000, been runner up in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. In 2003 Lewis was put forward as a candidate in the BBC Midlands great midlander of all-time award but lost out to eventual winner Reginald Mitchell the inventor of the Supermarine Spitfire.

Her British and Commonwealth record of 6831 points was set on 30 July 2000 in Talence, France. It is currently twenty-second in the all time list.

In 2002, her Olympic victory was ranked 90th in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Sporting Moments.

After athletics

Strictly Come Dancing

In 2004, Lewis took part in the BBC dancing competition, Strictly Come Dancing. She was partnered alongside professional dancer, Ian Waite and in the first few weeks scored the highest number of points with the judges. She didn't achieve her tongue-in-cheek ambition of a foxtrot round the dance floor with the IOC President, Jacques Rogge. She eventually reached the final and was runner-up to actress Jill Halfpenny. After this, she and the two other partners from the final, danced at the Royal Variety Performance.

About 10 days after competing in the final of Strictly Come Dancing, Denise and Ian competed again in the Strictly Come Dancing Champion of Champions Special, where the finalists from both series of the contest, competed against each other. Denise received the most points from the judges, however she once again became the runner up of the contest, as Jill Halfpenny won overall.

She again revisited the role for the BBC's charitable fund-raiser Let's Dance for Comic Relief in 2009, reaching the final of the competition.

Punditry

Since 2009, Lewis has acted as a pundit for BBC Sport's athletics coverage and she has covered major live events including the 2009 World Athletics Championships and 2010 Commonwealth Games.

Camp Orange (UK)

Lewis now hosts Camp Orange. Season 1 premiered on 22 July 2011.

Personal life

Lewis is married to Steve Finan, former manager of the UK pop group All Saints and son of comedian Tom O'Connor. She has three children: Lauryn, whose father is Patrick Stevens, Ryan and Kane.

She went to The Regis School in Wolverhampton, later to become The King's School, Church of England. A £1 million sports hall was later built there and named after her.

She played on "All Star Family Fortunes" broadcast on 29 November 2009 with her husband, mum, step son Joe O'Connor and best friend. She went on to win £10,000 for her chosen charity, The African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust.

In July 2011, Lewis appeared on a celebrity edition of the BBC One gameshow Pointless with her father-in-law Tom O'Connor. They reached the final, eventually winning £500 for charity.

External links

• IAAF profile for Denise Lewis
• Homepage of Birchfield Harriers
• Biography from uk:athletics

Sporting positions
Preceded by Sabine Braun	Women's Heptathlon Best Year Performance 1998	Succeeded by Eunice Barber

Preceded by Christopher Parker and Hanna Karttunen

Strictly Come Dancing runner up (with partner Ian Waite) Series 2 (2004)

Succeeded by Colin Jackson and Erin Boag