Thiam takes home another gold

Olympic heptathlon champion adds European Indoor pentathlon title to resume, becoming first woman since Sweden’s Kluft in 2004-05 to pull off the impressive double

By Erik Boal, DyeStat Editor

Nafissatou Thiam is 22, the reigning Olympic heptathlon gold medalist and only getting better, judging by her performance Friday at the European Indoor Championships at Kombank Arena in Belgrade, Serbia.

Thiam was on pace to challenge the world record through three events of the pentathlon, before finishing with a personal-best 4,870 points, just seven shy of the Belgian national record set in 2007 by Tia Hellebaut and No. 12 all-time in the one-day competition.

Highlighting Thiam’s performance was a 6-5 (1.96m) clearance in the high jump, breaking the pentathlon meet record of 6-4 (1.93m) set in 2005 by Sweden’s Carolina Kluft. Thiam cleared a heptathlon world-best 6-6 (1.98m) on her way to winning gold in Rio de Janeiro.

She also ran a personal-best 8.23 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles and produced another PR with a 50-2 (15.29m) indoor shot put.

A long jump of 20-10.75 (6.37m) and 2:24.44 in the 800 denied Thiam the Belgian record, but she became the first woman since Kluft to win the Olympic heptathlon gold medal and capture the European Indoor Championships pentathlon title the following year, when the Swedish star achieved the feat in 2004-05.

“After Rio people are expecting a lot from me and I only wanted to come here if I was well prepared. I did my thing and after four events everything went great,” Thiam told European Athletics. “I feel a little bad about the 800 meters, but I won and that’s what matters.”

Austria’s Ivona Dadic set a national record to place second with 4,767 points and Hungary’s Gyorgyi Zsivoczky-Farkas took third with 4,723, combining with Thiam to produce the top three scores in the world this year.