Nafissatou Thiam facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Nafissatou Thiam

Thiam at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene
Personal information
Born	(1994-08-19) 19 August 1994 (age 30) Brussels, Belgium
Height	1.87 m
Weight	69 kg
Sport
Country	Belgium
Sport	Athletics
Event(s)	Heptathlon, Pentathlon
Club	RFCL
Coached by	Michael Van der Plaetsen (2022–) Roger Lespagnard (2008–2022)
Achievements and titles
Highest world ranking	1st (2023)
Personal best(s)	Heptathlon: 7013 pts (3rd of all time) NR (Götzis 2017) Pentathlon: 5055 pts WR (Istanbul 2023)
Medal record Women's athletics Representing  Belgium Event 1st 2nd 3rd Olympic Games 3 0 0 World Championships 2 1 0 European Championships 3 0 1 European Indoor Championships 3 1 0 European U-23 Championships 0 1 0 European Jnr Championships 1 0 0 Event 1st 2nd 3rd Heptathlon 8 1 1 Pentathlon 3 1 0 High Jump 0 1 0 Olympic Games Gold 2016 Rio de Janeiro Heptathlon Gold 2020 Tokyo Heptathlon Gold 2024 Paris Heptathlon World Championships Gold 2017 London Heptathlon Gold 2022 Eugene Heptathlon Silver 2019 Doha Heptathlon European Championships Gold 2018 Berlin Heptathlon Gold 2022 Munich Heptathlon Gold 2024 Rome Heptathlon Bronze 2014 Zürich Heptathlon European Indoor Championships Gold 2017 Belgrade Pentathlon Gold 2021 Torun Pentathlon Gold 2023 Istanbul Pentathlon Silver 2015 Prague Pentathlon European U23 Championships Silver 2015 Tallinn High Jump European Junior Championships Gold 2013 Rieti Heptathlon

Nafissatou "Nafi" Thiam (French pronunciation: [tʃam]; born 19 August 1994) is a Belgian athlete specialising in multi-event competition. She is the first athlete with three multi-event gold medals at the Olympic Games, winning the heptathlon at the 2016 Rio, 2020 Tokyo and 2024 Paris Olympics. Her three individual Olympic golds in a row for a woman equals the record of Anita Wlodarczyk of Poland in the hammer and Faith Kipyegon in the 1500 metres Thiam is also the only Belgian athlete to successfully defend an Olympic title.

She won gold at the 2017 and 2022 World Championships, the 2018, 2022 and 2024 European Championships as well as the silver medal at the 2019 World Championships. Thiam was voted IAAF World Female Athlete of the Year in 2017. She was a Belgian flag bearer at the opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

In May 2017, at the Hypo-Meeting in Götzis, Austria, Thiam became only the fourth woman to break the heptathlon 7000-point barrier. In March 2023, at the European Indoor Championships, on her way to a record third European pentathlon title, she set a world record with a score of 5055 points. In doing so, Thiam became the first ever Belgian woman to set an official athletics world record.

As of March 2023, Thiam holds the Belgian records in the heptathlon and pentathlon, javelin and long jump (out and indoors). She holds the world record for the high jump discipline within the heptathlon competition, set in 2019.

Career

Junior career

Thiam at the 2013 European Junior Championships held in Rieti, Italy

Nafissatou Thiam was born in Brussels to a Belgian mother and a Senegalese father. 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.

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 world indoor record in the pentathlon at a meeting in Ghent with a total of 4558 points, breaking her personal best in four of the five events. 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. 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.

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

Senior career

In 2014, Thiam won the bronze medal for the heptathlon at the European Athletics Championships staged in Zürich, Switzerland.

In 2015, she won the silver medal in the pentathlon at the European Indoor Championships held in Prague and also claimed silver in the high jump at the European Under-23 Championships in Tallinn, Estonia.

Nafi Thiam at the 2017 European Indoor Championships staged in Belgrade, Serbia

On 13 August 2016, Thiam won the gold medal for the heptathlon at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro with a score of 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. At 21-years-old, she was the youngest Olympic heptathlon gold medalist in history. She was elected Belgian flag bearer at the Olympic closing ceremony.

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, she won the heptathlon at the Hypo-Meeting in Götzis, Austria with a score 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, she was third on the world all-time list behind Jackie Joyner-Kersee of USA and Sweden's Carolina Klüft. Her 59.32m javelin throw in Götzis broke the Belgian record for the women's individual event.

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

Nafi at the 2018 Hypo-Meeting in Götzis, Austria

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

On 27 June 2019, Thiam won the heptathlon competition at the Décastar meeting held in Talence, France setting a women's heptathlon high jump world record of 2.02 m (6 ft 7.40255906 in).

On 2 October 2019, she went again into the World Athletics Championships as world leader 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.

On 5 March 2021, she won the pentathlon at the European Indoor Championships in Toruń, Poland with a total of 4904 points.

On 5 August 2021, at the postponed 2020 Tokyo Games, she successfully defended her Olympic title with a score of 6791 points.

Thiam jumps over the bar at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon

At the 2022 World Athletics Championships held in Eugene, Oregon, Thiam claimed her second world gold medal on 18 July with a total of 6947 points.

On 3 March 2023, at the European Indoor Championships in Istanbul, she broke the pentathlon world record set in the same Ataköy Arena back in 2012 by Ukraine’s Nataliya Dobrynska (5013 points), totalling a score of 5055 points. With her third European indoor title, Thiam became the most successful female pentathlete in history of this championships. Injury, however, thwarted her capacity to defend her World Championships title, and in her absence Johnson-Thompson won her own second World title.

At the 2024 Paris Olympic game, for the first time in several years both Thiam and Johnson-Thompson reached the start line fit and healthy. Over the course of the two days, Thiam overcame an average high jump performance to retain once more her Olympic heptathlon title in a close contest, finishing 40 points ahead of her long-time rival who took silver. In doing so, she became the first athlete to win 3 consecutive Olympic gold medals in heptathlon.

Training and personal life

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. She was coached by Belgian former decathlete Roger Lespagnard for 14 years but she put an end to their collaboration in October 2022.

Besides being a professional athlete, Thiam studied geography at the University of Liège. "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 said. She graduated from university with a bachelor degree in September 2019.

Thiam is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF Belgium.

Achievements

Thiam with javelin at the 2018 European Championships in Berlin

Nafi Thiam lands a long jump at the 2023 European Indoor Championships in Istanbul

Thiam after setting a pentathlon world record with a score of 5055 points at the 2023 European Indoor Championships in Istanbul

All information from World Athletics profile unless otherwise noted.

International competitions

Representing  Belgium

Year	Competition	Venue	Position	Event	Result	Notes
2011	World Youth Championships	Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France	4th	Heptathlon	5366 pts
	European Youth Olympic Festival	Trabzon, Turkey	9th (q2)	Long jump	5.50 m
			11th	Javelin throw	40.62 m (45.60 q)
2012	World Junior Championships	Barcelona, Spain	14th	Heptathlon	5384 pts
2013	European Indoor Championships	Gothenburg, Sweden	6th	Pentathlon	4493 pts
	European Team Championships First League	Dublin, Ireland	1st	High jump	1.89 m
			12th	Javelin throw	40.72 m
	European Junior Championships	Rieti, Italy	1st	Heptathlon	6298 pts	NR
	World Championships	Moscow, Russia	14th	Heptathlon	6070 pts
	Jeux de la Francophonie	Nice, France	4th	High jump	1.83 m
2014	World Indoor Championships	Sopot, Poland	8th	High jump	1.90 m
	European Championships	Zürich, Switzerland	3rd	Heptathlon	6423 pts
2015	European Indoor Championships	Prague, Czech Republic	2nd	Pentathlon	4696 pts	PB
	European U23 Championships	Tallinn, Estonia	2nd	High jump	1.87 m
	World Championships	Beijing, China	11th	Heptathlon	6298 pts
2016	European Championships	Amsterdam, Netherlands	4th	High jump	1.93 m
	Olympic Games	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil	–	High jump	DNS
			1st	Heptathlon	6810 pts	WL NR
2017	European Indoor Championships	Belgrade, Serbia	1st	Pentathlon	4870 pts	WL
	World Championships	London, United Kingdom	1st	Heptathlon	6784 pts
2018	European Championships	Berlin, Germany	1st	Heptathlon	6816 pts	WL
2019	World Championships	Doha, Qatar	2nd	Heptathlon	6677 pts
2021	European Indoor Championships	Toruń, Poland	1st	Pentathlon	4904 pts	WL NR
	Olympic Games	Tokyo, Japan	1st	Heptathlon	6791 pts	SB
2022	World Championships	Eugene, United States	1st	Heptathlon	6947 pts	WL
	European Championships	Munich, Germany	1st	Heptathlon	6628 pts
2023	European Indoor Championships	Istanbul, Turkey	1st	Pentathlon	5055 pts	WR
2024	European Championships	Rome, Italy	1st	Heptathlon	6848 pts	CHB
	Olympic Games	Paris, France	1st	Heptathlon	6880 pts	SB

Circuit wins

• Hypo-Meeting: 2017, 2018
• Décastar: 2019
• Diamond League
  • 2016: Brussels Memorial Van Damme (High jump)
  • 2018: Brussels (High jump)
  • 2019: Birmingham Grand Prix (Long jump, NR)

Personal bests

National titles

• Belgian Athletics Championships
  • Long jump: 2015, 2018, 2022
• Belgian Indoor Athletics Championships
  • 60 m hurdles: 2017
  • High jump: 2015, 2017
  • Long jump: 2016
  • Pentathlon: 2016

Honours and awards

• R.F.C.L. Trophy Promising talent: 2010
• Golden Spike best female talent: 2012
• Golden Spike award: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2024
• Belgian Promising Talent of the Year: 2013
• Belgian Sportswoman of the Year: 2014, 2016, 2017, 2022, 2024
• Knight in the Walloon Order of Merit [fr]: 2014
• European Athletics women's Rising Star of the Year: 2016
• IAAF Female Rising Star of the Year: 2016
• Belgian Sports Merit Award: 2016
• Commander in the Walloon Order of Merit: 2016
• Forbes 30 under 30 for Europe: 2017
• IAAF World Female Athlete of the Year: 2017
• Grand Officer in the Order of Leopold: 2023

In 2017, Thiam officially became UNICEF Ambassador.

See also

In Spanish: Nafissatou Thiam para niños