Motherhood has changed her focu, and injury remains a concern, but Jessica Ennis-Hill is in an “amazing place” as she prepares for the last Olympic Games of her glittering career.
With 100 days to go until the opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro, Britain’s world and Olympic heptathlon champion said on Tuesday that she already felt this year would be unlike any other for her.
“I am preparing to go into an Olympics in a completely different way to last time. I am having injury struggles and things are up and down, but I am in an amazing place now,” she said.
“I am really happy, I am content with life and enjoying athletics and enjoying my personal life,” Ennis-Hill said. “It is scary because it [Rio] is not far away and I just want to do the best I can possibly do... It will be my last Olympics — fingers crossed I can get there — so I just want to enjoy it and make the most of it.”
The 30-year-old has yet to decide whether to continue competing until the 2017 International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships — at the London stadium where she won gold in 2012 — or call it a day after Rio.
However, what Britain’s Olympic poster girl does know is that every minute away from her one-year-old son, Reggie, has to be justified.
Ennis-Hill won the heptathlon world title in Beijing in August last year, 13 months after she gave birth, but a subsequent Achilles injury has forced her to miss the indoor season.
She said there have been moments of doubt along the way as she juggles motherhood and training, wondering whether she can ever be the same athlete.
Her son, who is already doing boisterous laps around the living room, provided her with plenty of motivation.
“I still have that drive to want to push on a little bit further and to have these great memories to look back on and show Reggie,” she said.
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