Yet the Sheffield girl – a pin up of London and Rio games – remains a victor in all our hearts, To become a mum, then regain world and come so close to retaining her Olympic title puts her in Britain’s hall of fame forever.
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In a thrilling two-day battle the lead has now changed hands four times, and the competitive experience of the 29-year-old Ennis-Hill may yet prove critical in the final session.
An emotional Jess Ennis-Hill as good as admitted that her career had come to an end after she claimed silver in the heptathlon in Rio.
“This is my last Olympics, and it’s unusual knowing I won’t be at another major championships like these”, Ennis-Hill said.
“The hurdles is so competitive and I couldn’t just come back and give it a go two or three times a week and I don’t want to be that kind of athlete”. “I just want to make the decision and have time to do normal things”.
Since winning the gold medal at the 2012 Olympics, Ennis-Hill got married and had a son.
Ennis-Hill started the day with a 72-point lead after what she dubbed a “mixed bag” in Friday’s first four events at the Olympic Stadium.
She also won World Championship gold in 2015, after returning to athletics following the birth of her first child, and put up a valiant effort to take silver on this occasion.
“I am really pleased with the hurdles and the high jump”.
“There no excuse for it, but I add that into my score now as though it’s expected”.
“These two days have been really tough but I am really proud”. Until Saturday night, however, her personal best was 6,508 points – enough to put in the mix for a bronze, some thought, but no one was tipping her for gold.
She threw 46.06m but that was more than seven metres shy of Thiam, while her team-mate’s medal hopes went up in smoke with a disappointing performance. But it’s still a huge decision and I want to make sure it’s the right one.
The competition had been billed by many as an all-British tussle between Ennis-Hill and Katarina Johnson-Thompson but the latter had another hard competition to finish down in sixth.
A remarkable head-to-head between Johnson-Thompson and Thiam saw them propel each other to a new Olympic Best in the heptathlon, with them both eventually bowing out at 1.98m (1211 points) after three failures at 2.01m.
“I was just disappointed with the shot put because I’ve been throwing so well in training”.
Ennis-Hill lost more ground on Thiam in the penultimate event, the javelin.
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Theisen-Eaton, who took silver behind Ennis-Hill at last year’s World Championships in Beijing, was left trailing in the Briton’s wake, finishing in sixth place.
