Keely Hodgkinson’s iconic pose after her stunning 800m Olympic win is commemorated in a gold leaf acrylic painting set to go on sale for £20,000

It is a moment that has now been immortalised in 24-carat gold.

Just hours after Keely Hodgkinson won the Olympic 800 metres, artist Ben Mosley got to work on the iconic moment using a photograph taken by Mail Sport’s Andy Hooper.

It is the victorious image from the front page of Tuesday’s Daily Mail which shows Hodgkinson waving a plastic crown head above her head in celebration.

To capture the moment, 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.

‘I can’t really draw something from my head, but if it’s in front of me then I can copy it. I didn’t do art GCSE because I knew I wouldn’t have time for the exam… it takes like eight hours. I just didn’t have time. It’s more of a hobby and something I like to do in my free time.’

The sacrifices paid off for Britain’s new queen of the track. She became an overnight superstar and her presence on Mosley’s latest storyboard, on sale for £20,000, will make it a precious piece for one lucky investor.

‘I’ve been capturing all of Team GB’s medal moments,’ said Mosley, who also created the painting for the McDonald’s fry boxes during the 2014 Football World Cup. ‘The theme I chose for this project was the colours of the Olympic rings, so day one to three is a blue background, four to six is yellow, seven to nine is black and 10 to 12 is green.

‘They’re all for sale. The deal we have is 60 per cent goes to Team GB and the next generation of athletes, and the other 40 per cent goes to me. 

‘It’s expressionism, colour… the wild colours of Matisse and the Fauves to capture the spirit of the games.

‘Sport’s my passion. I painted Sir Geoff Hurst’s fourth goal against West Germany and he bought it. Sir Alex Ferguson told me he’d bought a piece of mine. 

‘Visually, the swimmers are my favourite to paint because of the way they move in the water. I like the camaraderie of the rowers but I love them all and it was a brilliant moment for Keely.’