Jessica Ennis-Hill is poised to call time on her glittering career after having to settle for second best at her last Olympics.
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The Sheffield athlete’s reign as Olympic champion was ended by brilliant young Belgian Nafissatou Thiam in Brazil on Saturday night, but silver two years after the birth of her son Reggie, and with her best score – 6,775 points – since landing gold in such dominant fashion at London 2012 was still a cause for celebration.
The star said her defining decision would be: “Just to go away and have time with my family and make a decision, but it’s just been incredible and I don’t want to cry like this”.
“I’m going to get home and see Reggie and (husband) Andy and have a holiday, a break and switch off and relax, I can’t wait”.
Following on from day one, it looked like Jess was going to defend her Olympic title and take home another Gold medal, but it didn’t exactly go her way last night.
Billed as a titanic clash with world leader Brianne Theison-Eaton and fellow Brit Katarina Johnson-Thompson, Ennis-Hill had the measure of them both by the end of the fifth event, the long jump. “These two days have been really tough but I’m really proud”. I wasn’t sure if I would even make these Games. “I want to end on a high”. “I don’t want to be that athlete who fizzles out”.
Asked directly whether Rio was her last competition, she replied: “Possibly, yeah”.
She was a former United Kingdom record holder at the high jump and 100 hurdles, being true worldwide standard at the latter.
‘It’s inevitable isn’t it?’ Ennis-Hill said.
“When he said 10 seconds I thought “That is so much” but I just ran hard like I always do in the 800m and just tried to see what I could do”.
The show was carefully orchestrated by the British team’s “head of managing victory” – yes, such a position does exist – though Ennis-Hill had, on this rare occasion, finished second. “I suppose she felt like I did in London four years ago, when everything just clicked”. “I’m just really emotional”, she said.
“I think it’s a mix of thinking back to the last few years”, she said.
“I was like “oh god that’s so much”, she said.
Perhaps her time would be better suited to concentrating exclusively on one event. She was just 2 seconds away from winning Gold, and we were so gutted for her. “But no definitely not coaching, that takes a “special” person”. “She has to decide, ‘Am I satisfied, am I happy?'”. I train most days in the shot put, I try so hard in it.
“I still can’t believe it, I didn’t come for a medal”. It was more than my throws this weekend – it was my hurdles, the long jump and the two. We always said it was going to take 6,800 to win and it did – 6,810, so I feel like I was capable of it but there’s nothing I can do.
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“I know that Kat’s got so much more”. I don’t want to spend a year or two chasing bits and being injured. 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.
