RIO DE JANEIRO Aug 13 Belgium’s Nafissatou Thiam won the Olympic heptathlon gold medal on Saturday as the 21-year-old did just enough in a thrilling final 800 metres to edge out Britain’s defending champion Jessica Ennis-Hill.
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Asked about retirement after the event, Ennis-Hill said: “It’s going to be a tough decision, I’m going to go away and think about it”.
But despite the mother-of-all battles in Rio’s Olympic Stadium she finished with 6775 points just behind Belgian victor Nafissatou Thiam who clinched gold with 6810pts.
Ennis-Hill started her campaign on Friday and returns ahead of the rest of the pack with two events remaining, while fellow Briton Mo Farah will be looking to defend his 10,000m title.
Jessica Ennis-Hill could have competed in her final heptathlon at Rio 2016. “You can tell that everyone was giving 100% to get to the finish line first and I could not be prouder right now”, Trott said. I want to go and put all the pieces together, rest up and come back tomorrow stronger.
A 142-point advantage for the young leader amounted to a 9.47 second cushion over Ennis-Hill in the 800m.
To say I’ve got two Olympic gold medals is pretty fantastic. That is all I was thinking about – her.
“I’ve got to make a decision whether this is my last heptathlon or not, but I’m so proud of what I’ve achieved over the past few years”, said Ennis-Hill.
The 30-year-old comfortably won the seventh and final event, but her time of 7.47 seconds meant Thiam could not be hauled back. But having struggled with injury problems in the lead-up, gold was beyond her grasp, though she made it into the medals with her best performance of the year so far.
She produced a hugely gutsy display of front-running to give herself the best possible chance and came home in 2:09.07, but Thiam’s time of 2:16.54 was enough.
Bolt repeated the feat at London 2012 is now bidding to become the first track athlete to complete an unprecedented triple-triple.
Ennis-Hill? Leading after four of seven events in the heptathlon and very much in the driving seat to take in gold, particularly since her main pre-Olympic rival, Brianne Theisen-Eaton is floundering in sixth place.
“We always said it was going to take 6,800 to win and it did – 6810”.
Great Britain also won a silver medal in the men’s 4×100 metres medley relay.
She tried to put it back on, but decided that was taking too long so tossed it aside.
“I’ve been throwing 14.50s in training and to do this was annoying – and then the 200m again – a bit of a slow time really”.
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“There no excuse for it, but I add that into my score now as though it’s expected”.
