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Great Britain’s Jessica Ennis-Hill claimed silver in the Heptathlon after coming agonisingly close to winner Nafissatou Thiam of Belgium.
Gold medal winner Thiam produced the performance of her young career, setting five personal bests in seven disciplines. She started off impressively with a personal best in the 100m hurdles of 13.56 seconds before jumping 1.98m in the high jump; the best ever high jump clearance in a heptathlon, with Jessica Ennis-Hill further back jumping 1.89m. The Belgium threw the shot put a metre longer than the Britain with the Team GB athlete disappointed.
The prospect of gold for the GB athlete was looking promising at the end of day one, with Ennis-Hill gaining most of the points back from Thaim in the 200m. She was 72 points ahead of Thiam coming into day two, beating the Belgium by a whole second in the 200m.
Thiam came back in the second, and final day of the competition as impressively as the first. A huge 53m throw in the Javelin smashed her best ever performance before producing another personal best in 100m hurdles. Coming into the last discipline Jessica Ennis-Hill needed to beat Thiam’s time by more than 9.47 seconds.
The Briton gave it her all, but agonisingly fell two seconds short as Thiam finished with 6,810 points. While, the reigning Olympic champion finished on 6,775 coming away with a well-deserved silver with Canada’s Brianne Theisen-Eaton winning bronze. Fellow Britain Katarina Johnson-Thompson, the World Championships silver medallist, finished sixth after a disappointed competition.
After winning Olympic gold in London, Ennis-Hill, has had a lot of changes in her life. She had her first child, Reggie, in 2014 before remarkably winning a second world title just 13 months later. As a result her journey to the Rio Olympic Games has not been distraction free. Even though she was unable to defend her Olympic title she still came away proud.
“I have had an amazing few years and achieved so much in this sport. I’m really proud,” Ennis-Hill told BBC Sport.
The London 2012 Olympic heptathlon champion and now the 2016 Rio Olympic silver medallist is undecided about competing at the 2017 World Championships in London.
