Gold medal Olympian Keely Hodgkinson skips closing ceremony in Paris

Gold medal Olympian Keely Hodgkinson skipped the closing ceremony in Paris to continue her Marbella getaway this week.

The Games ended with a star-studded closing ceremony on Sunday night but Keely had already left the French capital and has been soaking up the sun in Spain.

On Monday the British 800m star, fresh from her podium success last Tuesday, celebrated in style with her family in the Costa del Sol.

The athlete, 22, was spotted strolling along the beach in Marbella with her father, Dean Hodgkinson, during their trip.

She showed off her incredible toned figure in a racy red, black and yellow bikini from the brand Super, cooled off in the ocean and was seen shielding her head from the sun on the beach in a Jacquemus bucket hat.

She added dark shades to her look and wore her blonde tresses pinned up in a high bun while going makeup free. 

The athlete, who was a cover star for ELLE magazine last month, has previously told how she follows a ‘look good, feel good’ mantra to give her an edge when she competes. 

It comes after on the weekend Keely was spotted in Puerto Banus, near Marbella, boarding a yacht organised for the star by hospitality brand La Sala Lifestyle. 

It bore a banner featuring the Olympic rings and a gold medal, with the well-meant if grammatically incorrect message: ‘Congratulating on your gold medal Keely Hodgkinson’.

In a post on Instagram, Clubhouse Marbella – part of the La Sala group – wrote: ‘What a pleasure to have 800m Olympic Gold Medallist @keely.hodgkinson celebrating her win on the @lasalalifestyle yacht today!’

Hodgkinson won the 800m women’s final to claim the first Olympic gold of her career, after bagging a silver medal – and breaking the British record set by Dame Kelly Holmes 20 years ago – at the 2020 Tokyo games.

Her winning time was 1:56.71, almost a full second faster than silver medallist Ethiopian Tsige Duguma.

Keely had previously revealed that a family holiday in Marbella was her ‘first priority’ after the Games – along with the possibility of buying a beige Porsche if she won gold.

Luxury fashion brands have also reportedly been circling and she already has partnerships with Rimmel London, Nike, watch brand Omega and sports nutrition company Maurten.  

The image of the athlete wearing a crown following her victory last Tuesday night is already being turned into a piece of art.

Artist Ben Mosley got to work on creating a portrait of the Stade de France moment using a photograph taken by Mail Sport’s Andy Hooper.

For an interpretation of the victorious image from the front page of Tuesday’s Daily Mail, Mosley used acrylic paint on gold leaf worth thousands of pounds per kilo. 

‘Wow! Is that really gold?’ said Hodgkinson, as she locked her eyes on the storyboard that is being worked on every day at Team GB‘s HQ in the Bois de Boulogne district of Paris.

She signed the masterpiece, before telling Mail Sport about her own artistic skills. ‘I was good at art at school, actually,’ said Hodgkinson. 

‘I can draw. If there’s something in front of me, I can copy it quite well and make it look realistic.’