Aly Raisman has confirmed that she and the NFL star Colton Underwood are a couple – just in time for them to celebrate the festive season together.

The Olympic gold medal winner and her new beau turned up to the Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year in New York together and Raisman – who won a gold and two silver medals in Rio and was the captain of the women’s gymnastics team – revealed that she and the 24-year-old football player had been a couple since August, although they had “kept it quiet” for a while.

The pair’s romance began soon after the Olympics, when, during an interview with Yahoo Sports,  Underwood sent in a video asking her out. Raisman’s fellow Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson is married to Andrew East, a former Oakland Raiders teammate for Johnson.

Last week Raisman, 22, revealed that she only learnt to “love her body” this year, in Rio. She told the audience at Reebok’s #PerfectNever female empowerment campaign that she was not confident before this year – despite her gold medal winning exploits at London 2012, where she won two golds and a bronze medal.

“For me, when I was younger, in high school or middle school, everyone - all the boys in my class - made fun of me because I was stronger than all of them and I used to be so self-conscious about my arms,” she explained. “It’s funny now because when I meet people they compliment me on them. It wasn’t until this past August at the Olympics that I started loving the way my arms were and how strong I was.”

She added: “It took me being able to compete two times at the Olympics, being one of the best gymnasts in the world, and I still had to take a step back and really think about how I really had to be confident, how this body has made me into the gymnast that I am.”