Nafissatou Thiam

Nafissatou "Nafi" Thiam (French pronunciation: ​[tʃam]; born 19 August 1994) is a Belgian athlete specializing in multi-event competition. Her mother is Belgian and her father is Senegalese. As of February 2020, Thiam holds the Belgian record in women's heptathlon, women's javelin and women's long jump. She set a new world record for the high jump discipline within a women's heptathlon competition in 2019.

Nafissatou Thiam

Personal information
Nationality	Belgian
Born	(1994-08-19) 19 August 1994 Brussels,[1] Belgium
Height	1.84 m (6 ft 0 in)
Weight	69 kg (152 lb)[2]
Sport
Country	Belgium
Sport	Athletics
Event(s)	Heptathlon
Club	RFCL
Coached by	Roger Lespagnard
Achievements and titles
Personal best(s)	Heptathlon: 7013 points (3rd all time) Pentathlon: 4870 points (10th all time)
Medal record Women's athletics Representing  Belgium Event 1st 2nd 3rd Olympic Games 1 0 0 World Championships 1 1 0 European Championships 1 0 1 European Indoor Championships 1 1 0 European U-23 Championships 0 1 0 European Jnr Championships 1 0 0 Total 5 3 1 Event 1st 2nd 3rd Heptathlon 4 1 1 Pentathlon 1 1 0 High Jump 0 1 0 Total 5 3 1 Olympic Games 2016 Rio de Janeiro Heptathlon World Championships 2017 London Heptathlon 2019 Doha Heptathlon European Championships 2018 Berlin Heptathlon 2014 Zürich Heptathlon European Indoor Championships 2017 Belgrade Pentathlon 2015 Prague Pentathlon European U23 Championships 2015 Tallinn High Jump European Junior Championships 2013 Rieti Heptathlon

Thiam won the gold medal in the heptathlon at the 2016 Summer Olympics, 2017 World Championships and the 2018 European Championships. She was voted IAAF World Athlete of the Year in 2017.

Junior career

Nafi Thiam was born in Namur, Belgium. She started participating in athletics when she was seven years old, winning her first national age group titles in 2009, by which time she was already specializing in the heptathlon. Her favorite athlete at the time was Swedish heptathlete Carolina Klüft.[3]

At the 2011 World Youth Championships in Athletics in Lille, France, Thiam finished fourth in the heptathlon with a total of 5366 points. Then, as a first-year junior, she finished 14th at the 2012 World Junior Championships in Athletics in the heptathlon with a total of 5384 points.

On 3 February 2013, Thiam broke the junior indoor world record in the pentathlon at a meeting in Ghent with a total of 4558 points, breaking her personal best in 4 of the 5 events.[4] Carolina Klüft, who later became Olympic champion and triple world champion, had held the record since 2002 with 4535 points. In doing so Thiam became the first Belgian female athlete to break a world record.[5] However, in March 2013, the record was not ratified due to a lack of anti-doping control on the day it was achieved. The testing took place the next day, which was beyond the deadline specified by the IAAF, athletics' international governing body.[6]

On 18 July 2013 Thiam won the gold medal in the heptathlon at the European Junior Athletics Championships, achieving a new Belgian record of 6298 points.

Senior career

2014 she won the bronze medal at the European Championships in Heptalon.

2015, she won the silver medal at the European Indoor Championships in Pentathlon and at the European U23 Championships in High Jump.

On 13 August 2016, Thiam won the gold medal in heptathlon at the Olympic Games in Rio with 6810 points, achieving personal best marks in five of the seven disciplines and defeating reigning Olympic and World Champion Jessica Ennis-Hill of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.[7] She was the youngest Olympic heptathlon gold medalist in history.[8][9] She was elected Belgian flag bearer at the Olympic closing ceremony.[10]

On 3 March 2017, Thiam won the pentathlon at the 2017 European Indoor Championships in Belgrade with a total of 4870 points.

On 28 May 2017, Thiam won the heptathlon at the Hypo-Meeting in Götzis, Austria with a total of 7013 points, again achieving personal best scores in five of the seven disciplines, making her the fourth woman to score 7000 points or higher in competition. As of July 2017, Thiam is third on the all-time list behind Jackie Joyner-Kersee of USA and Carolina Klüft. Her 59.32m Javelin throw in the Hypo-Meeting heptathlon in Götzis broke the Belgian record for the women's individual event.[11]

On 6 August 2017, Thiam went into the Athletics World Championships in London as hot favorite, winning the heptathlon world title and becoming the first Belgian to win a World Athletics Championships gold medal.[12]

On 10 August 2018 she won the gold medal at the 2018 European Championships, becoming only the third woman to win Olympic Games, World and European Championships in heptathlon, after Carolina Klüft and Jessica Ennis-Hill.

On 27 June 2019, Nafi Thiam won the Heptathlon competition at the 2019 Decastar in Talence (France) and then set a Women's Heptathlon High Jump world record of 2.02m immediately afterwards. The Olympic champion has now qualified for the Tokyo Games in 2020.[13]

On 2 October 2019, Thiam again went into the World Championships as world lead, and favourite for gold, but was expected to face stronger competition than in 2017 from erstwhile rival and 2018 European runner-up, Great Britain's Katarina Johnson-Thompson. In the event, Thiam succumbed to an elbow injury that hindered her javelin, while Johnson-Thompson recorded a huge personal best of 6981 points, a national record and the sixth highest competition score in history to win comfortably. Thiam's performance was still good enough for the silver medal.

Thiam is a member of RFCL Athlétisme, an athletics club operating under the aegis of the Technical and Sports Department of the Royal Football Club de Liège, and is coached by Belgian former decathlete Roger Lespagnard.[14]

Besides being a professional athlete, Nafi studies geography at the University of Liège.[15] "I like climatology, I like geomorphology – how the earth is shaped by rivers. A lot of subjects, like a heptathlon. Maybe that's why I love it." she says.[16]

Thiam is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassdor for UNICEF Belgium.[17]

Awards

2015 Nafi Thiam was elected Belgian Sports woman of the year.

2016 she was European Athletics Rising Star of the Year, IAAF Rising Star of the Year and Belgian Sportswoman of the Year.

2017 Thiam became IAAF Female World Athlete of the Year. Furthermore, she was among Forbes 30 under 30 for Europe and officially became UNICEF Ambassador. Again she won the award for Belgians Sportswoman of the Year.[18]

Championship podiums

Olympic Games

• 2016, heptathlon: outdoor, gold medal (6810 points)

World Championships

• 2017, heptathlon: outdoor, gold medal (6784 points)
• 2019, heptathlon: outdoor, silver medal (6677 points)

European Championships

• 2018, heptathlon: outdoor, gold medal (6816 points)
• 2017, pentathlon: indoor, gold medal (4870 points)
• 2015, pentathlon: indoor, silver medal (4696 points)
• 2014, heptathlon: outdoor, bronze medal (6423 points)

Belgian National Championships

• 2018, long jump: outdoor, gold medal (6m 60 cm)
• 2016, pentathlon: indoor, gold medal (4678 points)
• 2016, long jump: indoor, gold medal (6m 51 cm)
• 2015, high jump: indoor, gold medal (1m 85 cm)
• 2015, long jump: outdoor, gold medal (6m 40 cm)

Career achievement summary

1 x Olympic champion

1 x World champion

1 x European champion

1 x European Championships Bronze medallist

1 x European Indoor champion

1 x in Top 8 at World Indoor Championships

1 x European Indoor Championships Silver medallist

1 x European Junior champion

1 x in Top 8 at European Championships

1 x European U23 Championships Silver medallist

2 x Diamond League meeting winner

1 x in Top 8 at European Indoor Championships

1 x European Team Championships 1st League winner

2 x National champion

5 x National Indoor champion[19]

Personal bests

Outdoor Event Performance Points Venue Date 100 metres hurdles 13.34 s 1074 Götzis, Austria 27 May 2017 High jump 2.02 m ^[a] 1264 Talence, France 22 June 2019 Shot put 15.41 m 888 Talence, France 22 June 2019 200 metres 24.37 s 945 Tournai, Belgium 18 May 2019 Long jump 6.86 m (NR) 1125 Birmingham, Great Britain 18 August 2019 Javelin throw 59.32 m (NR) 1041 Götzis, Austria 28 May 2017 800 metres 2:15.24 890 Götzis, Austria 28 May 2017 Heptathlon 7013 pts (NR) PB Total 7227 Götzis, Austria 28 May 2017

Indoor Event Performance Venue Date 60 metres hurdles 8.23 s Belgrade, Serbia 3 March 2017 High jump 1.96 m Belgrade, Serbia 3 March 2017 Shot put 15.52 m Paris, France 9 February 2018 Long jump 6.79 m (NR) Liévin, France 1 March 2020 800 metres 2:21.18 Ghent, Belgium 3 February 2013 Pentathlon 4870 pts Belgrade, Serbia 3 March 2017

^a Heptathlon world record

References

1. "Page 12 Nafissatou Thiam" (PDF). Ligue Belge Francophone d'Athlétisme. 15 August 2016.
2. Nafi Thiam at Sports Reference
3. "Thiam Nafissatou" (PDF) (in French). Ligue belge francophone d'athlétisme. 2009. Retrieved 5 February 2013.
4. Vande Weyer, Philippe (3 February 2013). "Nafissatou Thiam bat le record du monde junior du pentathlon indoor". Le Soir. Retrieved 5 February 2013.
5. Jacobs, Hans (5 February 2013). "Is de nieuwe Tia Hellebaut opgestaan?". Het Nieuwsblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 5 February 2013.
6. "Le record du monde junior de Nafissatou Thiam, établi à Gand, ne sera pas homologué". Le Soir (in French). 20 March 2013. Retrieved 20 March 2013.
7. "Nafi Thiam kroont zich tot olympisch kampioene op de zevenkamp" (in Dutch). Sporza. 2016. Archived from the original on 15 August 2016. Retrieved 14 August 2016.
8. "Nafissatou Thiam". Red Bull. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
9. "About". Nafi Thiam. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
10. "The Flagbearers for the Rio 2016 Closing Ceremony". 21 August 2016. Retrieved 22 August 2016.
11. "Nafissatou Thiam". Red Bull. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
12. "Nafissatou Thiam". Red Bull. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
13. "A new record for Nafissatou Thiam". Focus on Belgium. 27 June 2019. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
14. "Thiam Nafissatou" (PDF). Ligue belge francophone d'athlétisme. Retrieved 5 February 2013.
15. "Nafissatou Thiam cumule les récompenses !". Université de Liège. Archived from the original on 19 August 2014. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
16. www.redbull.com https://www.redbull.com/int-en/athlete/nafissatou-thiam. Retrieved 29 July 2019. Missing or empty |title= (help)
17. "About". Nafi Thiam. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
18. "Stats". Nafi Thiam. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
19. "Nafissatou THIAM". brussels.diamondleague.com. Retrieved 29 July 2019.

External links

• Nafissatou Thiam at World Athletics
• Nafissatou Thiam at Olympics at Sports-Reference.com (archived)
• Nafissatou Thiam European Athletics profile
• Nafissatou Thiam Diamond League profile