Jessica Ennis-Hill, the Olympic gold and silver medallist in the heptathlon, has announced her retirement from athletics at the age of 30. In a statement on Thursday, she said she wanted to leave the sport on a high after a career that also included two golds and a silver at the World Athletics Championships and a Commonwealth record. Her decision comes just two months after she won silver in Rio.
Ennis-Hill’s journey began reluctantly. Nicknamed 'The Reluctant Athlete' as a teenager, she had her first hangover at 16 after a party, then threw up before and after a junior meeting the next day. That experience convinced her to commit fully. 'I did not want to look back with regrets,' she later wrote. Her first prize in athletics was a cheap pair of trainers at age 11, when she started heptathlon because her short attention span suited switching events.
Growing up in a mixed-race family, Ennis-Hill faced racist abuse. Her father, Vinnie, a former sprinter from Jamaica, once confronted a parent whose daughter insulted her at a junior meet. She credits her mother, Alison, for her competitive instincts. At school, she was bullied for her size and felt 'paralysed by self-consciousness', but success in sport helped build her confidence.
Her coach, Toni Minichiello, has been with her since the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield. Their relationship is 'love-hate', she wrote, causing 'more tears, pain, and ultimately joy'. Under his guidance, she won the European Junior Championships in 2005. In 2007, after finishing fourth at the world championships, the great Carolina Kluft told her: 'This will be you, one day.'
In 2008, a fractured metatarsal ended her Beijing Olympics hopes and nearly her career. She spent three months on crutches but rebounded to win gold at the 2009 Berlin world championships. Success brought celebrity: an MBE, Vogue photoshoots and a waxwork at Madame Tussauds. Pressure mounted before London 2012, and she finished second at the 2011 world championships, but she went on to win Olympic gold the following year.
