A love story that will stir nostalgia among sports enthusiasts – Olympic hero Sir Ben Ainslie is wedded to Sky presenting icon Georgie Thompson.
Football aficionados will recall switching on Sky Sports News and seeing Thompson providing the latest updates on their teams, as she was a popular host for the channel for over ten years. Olympic followers will remember Sir Ben navigating the seas to become one of Britain’s most decorated athletes – but few will know that the pair have been together for more than a decade.
Sir Ben, 47, solidified his status as an Olympic legend by securing gold at four consecutive Games in sailing. He also managed to secure a silver at his final Games in London 2012, becoming the Games’ most successful sailor of all time.
Meanwhile, Georgie departed Sky Sports News in 2011 and went on to present several Sky shows, including leading their F1 coverage, before relocating to America to work on a Fox Sports show. The couple exchanged vows in December 2014 and now share two children, reports the Mirror.
They also co-host a podcast called Performance People, which has featured well-known personalities such as Mercedes CEO Toto Wolff, running legend Paula Radcliffe, and Hollywood star Stanley Tucci. However, the journey hasn’t always been smooth for the blissful couple.
The former panellist on A League of Their Own was actually involved in a romance with Declan Donnelly of Ant and Dec fame before she made it official with Britain’s top sailor. Thompson, now known as Lady Ainslie, and Donnelly were an item from 2009 to 2011.
In a 2013 interview with The Mail, Georgie revealed details about her time with Donnelly and how her Sky Sports News colleagues would tease her about the relationship with the TV star. One prank even involved the phrase ‘It’s all hands on Dec’ being sneakily inserted into her autocue feed.
She confessed that she found the joke “very funny”, but the playful teasing didn’t stop when she started dating Sir Ben. Just a week into her role on the US show Crowd Goes Wild, co-host Regis Philbin enquired about a weekend she’d spent with her boyfriend ‘Sir Ben’.
This led to a humorous misunderstanding where some believed the former Sky Sports News presenter was actually dating Hollywood legend, and fellow knight, Sir Ben Kingsley. “Actually, very early on, one of the panellists discovered who I was dating and joked, “I loved him in that film”, so what can you do but just go with it,” she said.
Georgie had been acquainted with Ainslie for three years before they decided to become a couple, with the 46-year-old revealing they met through friends. Georgie, who once declared she’d never date a sportsman “because it would only bring me grief”, asserts that their first meeting was “a bit of a thunderbolt moment”.
However it took some time for the perfect storm to form, adding that the “thunderbolt took years before it became anything real”. Georgie opened up about her relationship with Ainslie, confessing that initially they were “in different places” but eventually “the stars aligned” for their romance to flourish.
In the heartwarming 2013 interview, she affectionately dubbed Ainslie ‘Popeye the sailor man’ and shared that they had sailed together competitively, though she humbly noted that her Olympian beau carried most of the weight in their nautical endeavours. Life has been plain sailing for Georgie and Sir Ben since their wedding, welcoming their daughter Bellatrix in 2016 and son Fox in 2021.
The family currently lives on the Isle of Wight, but there’s buzz that they might sell their impressive £3.5million home due to work and family commitments limiting their time there.