Jessica Ennis-Hill

Fearne Cotton (0:00)

Hello and welcome to Happy Place. I'm Fearne Cotton and this is the show that meets people who have lived a life and are still making sense of it all.

And today we're adding to our little box set of Olympic gold-winning athletes as we meet Jessica Ennis-Hill.

Jessica Ennis-Hill (0:16)

It was the toughest time of my life because I just wanted to spend all my time with my little baby and do everything right for him. But then I wanted him to see mummy working and going for medals.

Yeah, it's the hardest thing.

Fearne Cotton (0:29)

Jessica has done some amazing things. The ones you'll have seen are mostly on track and field, but coming up from having a baby and doing it all again. How did she do it?

We'll find out.

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Fearne Cotton (1:31)

And now, here's the show. Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, thank you so much for your time.

Jessica Ennis-Hill (1:58)

Oh, thank you for having me.

Fearne Cotton (2:00)

I love saying Dame.

Jessica Ennis-Hill (2:02)

It's so strange.

Fearne Cotton (2:03)

Is it strange?

Jessica Ennis-Hill (2:04)

Yeah, people always say, you know, does everyone call you Dame? And not really, it's just, it feels weird. I feel, yeah, strange.

Fearne Cotton (2:10)

Well, unbelievably deserved, so you should fling it around like no one's business.

It's amazing. I've been long time fascinated with you because of what you've achieved and how you've done it. And being an athlete and being a world class athlete in the heptathlon, you're not gonna be just world class at one thing, but seven, which is just, you know, as someone that likes running and doing exercise, I can't fathom how you would be so acutely brilliant at so many things. Have you always been able to sort of focus on many different things in life and spread yourself that thinly?

Jessica Ennis-Hill (2:50)

I think it's something that I've learned over time. So when I first started athletics, I kind of, you know, started off in the sprints. It was something I enjoyed. And then I very, you know, at a very early age fell into the heptathlon. And at the beginning, I absolutely hated it. I was like, yeah, I hated it. I kind of went into it very naively and my coach was like, yeah, there's this event, the heptathlon, you just do a few events on this day, few events on that day, it ends with 800, it's fine.

And it actually is a really brutal event. And it's so, so hard. So before I knew it, I was in this event and not winning that much, not very successful across all of the events and just finding it really tough. So yeah, it took quite a bit of time to understand all the events, master them all in a reasonable way and just start to enjoy and love the events.

Fearne Cotton (3:42)

What made you stick in it? Because I would imagine sort of thinking about how I would deal with that situation as a young person. If I wasn't winning, I'd think, oh, sod that, I'm not doing it anymore. What made you persevere and think, actually, this is worth putting in a bit of blood, sweat and tears to try and do well?

Jessica Ennis-Hill (4:00)

Yeah, I think you're right. When you're a young child, you kind of want everything instantly. And I did very much. I wanted to be successful straight away. I wanted to be on the podium and I was nowhere near getting on the podium. So it was hard and I had to learn to approach it in a different way. So I know that it was a short-term success. It was gonna be a longer journey and it was hopefully gonna be long-term success. And that was something that my coach instilled within me from a young age. He would just say, right, okay, we've got this plan. It's, you're not gonna win medals maybe for like five years, if not longer. And I was like, wow, this is ages. Injuries happen and there's all these other things that take place.