Mansfield swim star Becky Adlington joins fellow Olympic legends and Strictly stars for five-star Turkish delight

Pretty good, I think we’d all agree.

And that’s exactly what Mansfield’s double Olympic gold medal-winning heroine Becky Adlington was doing this month for the launch of the incredible 150m Euro Anda Barut Collection hotel and resort in Didim.

Becky was joined on the star-studded guest list by fellow Olympic athletes Daley Thompson, Colin Jackson, Denise Lewis, Paula Radcliffe and Jamie Baulch, along with Olympic rowers Ric Egington and Vicky Thornley, Olympic diver Leon Taylor and Strictly stars Ian Waite and James and Ola Jordan.

Fellow Strictly man AJ Pritchard and his brother Curtis were also among the stars on show.

Each sporting and dancing star ran classes for invited guests and media to take part in throughout a weekend of health, fitness and wellbeing

The whole launch weekend was organised by Jamie Baulch’s wife Cheryl Hicks’ company Call Bruce, and it was through her Becky got involved.

She said: "I’ve known Cheryl and Jamie for years and a couple of times Cheryl has asked me to come along and do the swim element for launch events like these and when she suggested coming out here, I said ‘absolutely’.

"And to see it all come through from her asking a year ago to being here now is just amazing.”

As well as adding some serious stardust to the event, the sporting and dancing stars also promoted the benefits of people supporting each other through their fitness and wellness journeys by regularly joining in other people’s classes.

Becky continued: “I’ve had such a good time and I’ve really enjoyed the other classes, they’re all good fun and it shows people that exercise is not about beasting people, it’s about helping them make it better.”

These days, Becky lives in Manchester, but Mansfield is always in her heart.

She said: “All my family still live in Mansfield, my mum and dad still live there and my sisters both live there.

"These last few weeks, my mum has not been well so I’ve been back to Mansfield the past three weekends on the trot before coming to Turkey.”

With Turkey done, it’s back to the day job for Becky, which includes being one of the owners of the swim! business – which has its Mansfield base at Portland Retail Park – before turning her expertise to being part of the BBC commentary team for the swimming at this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris.

She said: “I’m really looking forward to being out in Paris because for so long we’ve just been doing stuff from the studio in Manchester, so it will be really nice to be on site, in thick of it, in the atmosphere, soaking everything up, having a crowd back because in Tokyo the stands were empty because of Covid."

And Becky is confident Great Britain can enjoy a great Games in the pool.

She said: “Obviously we’ve got our big hitters, Adam Peaty, Duncan Scott, Matt Richards, people like that, but then you’ve got others in there too and I genuinely think we’ll pick up a handful of medals.”