Britain’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson (L) speaks with a referee near teammate Jessica Ennis-Hill (back) during the long jump of the women’s heptathlon athletics event at the 2015 IAAF World Championships at the “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium in Beijing on August 23, 2015.
As she lay on her back, hands covering her face trying to absorb the reality of again being a world champion, Jessica Ennis-Hill’s thoughts turned to who might be watching.
Jessica Ennis-Hill completed a remarkable comeback in her first major tournament for three years by winning a second World Championships heptathlon gold medal in Beijing on Sunday.
After securing victory with 6,669 points – 115 ahead of her nearest rival, the Canadian Brianne Theisen-Eaton – she said she hoped her achievements would act as an inspiration for other working mothers.
Latvia’s Laura Ikauniece-Admidina took the bronze medal with 6,516 points.
Eventually, Little got her coach to come around to the idea.
“I think I hit my foot too hard”, Bolt said after the earlier race.
Johnson-Thompson endured entirely contrasting emotions as the youngster jogged around the two laps of the track after her long jump disaster ensured she plummeted down the standings and out of contention.
“I still want to be world champion for the third time, but I hope to get that medal at some time, whether that’s next year or 10 years down the line”.
Ennis Hill has also been sidelined for long periods with an Achilles injury. There were different pressures going into London 2012.
“This year, juggling all my mummy duties and training, it has been so hard”.
“Coming here, if I’d come away with a bronze medal I’d have been happy”.
Johnson-Thompson had started the day within 80 points of her older team mate and with strong events to come was reckoned to have a golden opportunity.
“This is the last place I wanted to be right now”, an emotional Johnson-Thompson told the BBC afterwards.
But nothing should detract from Ennis-Hill’s extraordinary effort given that as recently as November she was unable to lift a 20-kilo bar above her head as her body had still to recover from the rigours of childbirth.
Following her celebrated gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics, the CBE recipient took a well-earned break form her craft which Thompson explained was “probably the best thing she could have done”.
Ennis-Hill was beaten by Tatyana Chernova in South Korea, but in January the Russian received a two-year ban, backdated to 2013, after the retesting of an anti-doping sample from the 2009 championships revealed an anabolic steroid.