Super mum Jessica Ennis-Hill is still our golden girl despite silver in the heptathlon at the Rio Olympics, writes Graham Walker.
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Ennis-Hill needed to beat Thiam by almost 10 seconds in the closing 800m but Thiam, who produced five personal bests from seven events, managed to pace her run well and eventually prevailed by a total of 35 points.
Thiam’s winning total was 6,810 with Ennis-Hill on 6,775, while Canada’s Brianne Thiesen Eaton took the bronze as Britain’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson finished sixth.
Thiam has raised her game in nearly every discipline of the seven in the last two days and did so again in the javelin, leaving her with a 9.47 second advantage over Ennis-Hill going into the 800m.
“I am kind of thinking back to the past few years and I have just got to make a decision as to whether this is my last heptathlon or not”.
“I am pretty emotional but these are happy tears and I am just really proud to be back on the podium”, she said.
“This is my last Olympics, and it’s unusual knowing I won’t be at another major championships like these”, Ennis-Hill said. As she lined up for the 800m, the final event of the women’s heptathlon, she knew she needed to overturn a 142-point deficit to surpass Nafissatou Thiam, the brilliant young Belgian – nine years her junior – if she was to retain her Olympic title. “I’m just really emotional”, she said.
“I knew she was going to run hard – I knew she was running for that gold medal”.
However, that didn’t put the absolute superstar off as she ran the race of her life, powering through the finish line in first place. Ennis-Hill predictably won the final heat of the 800m but 21 year old Thiam secured overall victory with a fifth personal best of the week, finishing in 2.16.54 as the 50-1 outsider stunned the world.
Ennis-Hill performed well – indeed her score was her best since London 2012, since which she has given birth to her now two-year-old son Reggie.
Looking at the points, an extra 1cm in high jump, 2cm in long jump, 0.5m in javelin and 14cm in shot put would have been enough for Ennis-Hill to win gold. “I don’t want to cry on TV but these years have been incredible so just really proud”.
While Ennis-Hill was a model of consistency, Thiam had many highs and, bar an elbow problem, seemingly no lows as she hurdled quicker, jumped longer and higher and threw further than she ever had before.
“I might not do this again”, she said, wrapped in a British flag.
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“I was like “oh god that’s so much”, she said. It was insane – we all had four hours sleep last night and we were finishing at, well, I don’t know what time it is now.
