Denise Lewis stands down as UK Athletics president 'to protect' BBC punditry job
Dame Denise Lewis has announced she has "temporarily" stood down as the president of UK Athletics (UKA) just two months after she was appointed.
The Olympic gold medal winning heptathlete made the decision following questions about her combining the role with her work as a pundit for the BBC. Lewis was elected president in December, replacing former Olympic sprinter Jason Gardener.
However, she continued to work as a BBC pundit which led to questions over how Lewis could combine the two roles given her punditry work could involve her being critical of UKA athletes and coaches. Following the controversy, Lewis has decided to "temporarily step away" ahead of this weekend's World Indoor Athletics Championships in Glasgow.
In a post on her Instagram story, she wrote: "I've had to make the difficult decision to temporarily step away from my role as UKA President - with the upcoming Olympics and a hectic summer ahead. I would only want to accept the role when it can have my full attention."
Lewis is set to be on punditry duty for the BBC this weekend and the Times report that her work with the broadcaster 'had come under scrutiny because of concerns that her integrity could be compromised'.
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The report adds that there were 'intense discussions' between the BBC, UKA and Lewis' representatives, with an insider quoted as calling the situation a "mess". Neither the BBC or UKA have commented on her statement.
When Lewis was elected in December, it came after UKA had announced annual losses of £3.7million and chair Ian Beattie was forced to address fears of bankruptcy. "If we thought we were under threat of bankruptcy, we as directors would have problems and we don't think that," Beattie said.
Lewis was only appointed UKA president back in December (REUTERS)"We can work our way through this. We are going to be working our way through with quite a different organisation. I've got confidence. I think it's going to be another tough few years ahead, the environment's difficult and nobody gives us money easily.
"But the steps we've taken, on the event side, on the safeguarding side, in other areas where we're looking to bring in more revenue are positive and can give us that confidence. I've not tried to whitewash it in terms of how things are.
"I'm not saying we'll turn it around and be profitable next year unless we get lucky breaks, unless some things come in. It will take time to turn that around. What we now see is a plan and a model where we can do that and probably last year, the big hope was we'd be able to attract the commercial sponsor rather than anything a bit more structured than that."
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