HEPTATHLON’S STUDENT SUPERSTAR ON PRIZES
A full house of Olympic, world and European gold medals, a world athlete of the year award, a clutch of blue-chip sponsorship deals, a catwalk jaunt at Paris Fashion Week and the mantle of being one of athletics’ post-bolt era superstars.
And only 24 years old. On first look, Nafissatou Thiam’s rise seems straight and serene, the cream rising inexorably to the top. In fact, it has been a little more complicated than that.
Six weeks before the Rio Olympics in 2016, the Belgian heptathlete damaged her elbow so badly that she was told by doctors to have surgery rather than compete.
At the World Championships in London in 2017, for the first time she was hindered by suffocating nerves and the weight of expectation.
On the evening between the two days of competition at the European Championships in Berlin in 2018 she was in tears after a dispute with the Belgian Athletic Federation over the prominence of sponsors on her team kit. Each time she won gold anyway.
Her six-foot frame, all slingshot levers and ground-gobbling stride, is striking. But the most important part of her make-up might be the top six inches.
“Through the years, I really learned a lot about the mental aspect,” she tells BBC Sport.
“Sometimes you can think it is not that important, but it is super important. It can really help you to huge things, just to be confident and to be strong in your mental approach.
“So much can happen, you really have to stay focused, and not get distracted because you are hurt or things are not going according to plan.”
Thiam’s Belgian mother Daniele Denisty, who raised her and her three siblings after splitting from their Senegalese father when the children were young, is a constant inspiration.the pair used to train alongside each other after Denisty got into track and field in her thirties.