Nafissatou "Nafi" Thiam (; 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.In een bijzonder exclusief lijstje als tweede vrouw ooit: deze toppers gingen Nafi Thiam voor met historische hattrick 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
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.
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.
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 .
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.
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's degree in September 2019.
Thiam is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF Belgium.
Achievements
All information from World Athletics profile unless otherwise noted.
International competitions 2011World Youth ChampionshipsVilleneuve-d'Ascq, France4thHeptathlon5366 ptsEuropean Youth Olympic FestivalTrabzon, Turkey9th (q2)Long jump5.50 m11thJavelin throw40.62 m (45.60 q)2012World Junior ChampionshipsBarcelona, Spain14thHeptathlon5384 pts2013European Indoor ChampionshipsGothenburg, Sweden6thPentathlon4493 ptsEuropean Team Championships First LeagueDublin, Ireland1stHigh jump1.89 m12thJavelin throw40.72 mEuropean Junior ChampionshipsRieti, Italy1stHeptathlon6298 ptsWorld ChampionshipsMoscow, Russia14thHeptathlon6070 ptsJeux de la FrancophonieNice, France4thHigh jump1.83 m2014World Indoor ChampionshipsSopot, Poland8thHigh jump1.90 mEuropean ChampionshipsZürich, Switzerland3rdHeptathlon6423 pts2015European Indoor ChampionshipsPrague, Czech Republic2ndPentathlon4696 ptsEuropean U23 ChampionshipsTallinn, Estonia2ndHigh jump1.87 mWorld ChampionshipsBeijing, China11thHeptathlon6298 pts2016European ChampionshipsAmsterdam, Netherlands4thHigh jump1.93 mOlympic GamesRio de Janeiro, Brazil–High jump1stHeptathlon6810 pts NR2017European Indoor ChampionshipsBelgrade, Serbia1stPentathlon4870 ptsWLWorld ChampionshipsLondon, United Kingdom1stHeptathlon6784 pts2018European ChampionshipsBerlin, Germany1stHeptathlon6816 ptsWL2019World ChampionshipsDoha, Qatar2ndHeptathlon6677 pts2021European Indoor ChampionshipsToruń, Poland1stPentathlon4904 ptsWL NROlympic GamesTokyo, Japan1stHeptathlon6791 pts2022World ChampionshipsEugene, United States1stHeptathlon6947 ptsEuropean ChampionshipsMunich, Germany1stHeptathlon6628 pts2023European Indoor ChampionshipsIstanbul, Turkey1stPentathlon5055 pts 2024European ChampionshipsRome, Italy1stHeptathlon6848 ptsOlympic GamesParis, France1stHeptathlon6880 pts2025World ChampionshipsTokyo, Japan –HeptathlonDNF
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, )
Personal bests
+OutdoorEventPerformancePointsVenueDateNotes100 m hurdles13.21 s1093Eugene, OR, United States 17 July 2022High jump2.02 m1264Talence, France22 June 2019Shot put15.54 m897Paris, France8 August 2024200 metres24.37 s945Gaurain-Ramecroix, Belgium18 May 2019Long jump6.86 m1125Birmingham, United Kingdom18 August 2019Javelin throw59.32 m1041Götzis, Austria28 May 2017800 metres2:10.62 min956Paris, France9 August 2024Heptathlon7013 ptsPB total: 7321Götzis, Austria28 May 2017, 4th of all time
+IndoorEventPerformancePointsVenueDateNotes60 m hurdles8.23 s1077Belgrade, Serbia3 March 2017High jump1.96 m1184Belgrade, Serbia3 March 2017Shot put15.54 m897Istanbul, Turkey3 March 2023Long jump6.79 m1102Liévin, France1 March 2020800 metres2:13.60 min913Istanbul, Turkey3 March 2023Pentathlon5055 ptsPB total: 5173Istanbul, Turkey3 March 2023WR
National titles Belgian Athletics Championships Long jump: 2015, 2018, 2022, 2025 Javelin Throw: 2023 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 : 2014 European Athletics women's Rising Star of the Year: 2016« Nafissatou Thiam remporte le trophée "Rising star" de l'athlé européen », Sport/Foot Magazine, 16 octobre 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.
In 2026, the / in the Heysel neighbourhood of Brussels, Belgium, was named in her honour.
References
External links