Nafissatou "Nafi"Thiam (French pronunciation:[tʃam]; born 19 August 1994[5]) is a Belgianathlete specialising in multi-event competition. She is the first athlete with three multi-event gold medals at the Olympic Games, winning theheptathlon at the2016 Rio,2020 Tokyo and2024 Paris Olympics.[6] Her three individual Olympic golds in a row for a woman equals the record ofAnita Wlodarczyk ofPoland in thehammer andFaith Kipyegon in the1500 metres[7] Thiam is also the only Belgian athlete to successfully defend an Olympic title.[8]
She won gold at the2017 and2022 World Championships, the2018,2022 and2024 European Championships as well as the silver medal at the2019 World Championships. Thiam was votedIAAFWorld 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 theHypo-Meeting inGötzis, Austria, Thiam became only the fourth woman to break the heptathlon 7000-point barrier.[9] In March 2023, at theEuropean Indoor Championships, on her way to a record third Europeanpentathlon title, she set a world record with a score of 5055 points.[10][11] In doing so, Thiam became the first ever Belgian woman to set an official athletics world record.[12]
As of March 2023, Thiam holds theBelgian records in theheptathlon andpentathlon,javelin andlong jump (out and indoors). She holds the world record for thehigh jump discipline within the heptathlon competition, set in 2019.
Nafissatou Thiam was born inBrussels 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 theheptathlon. Her favorite athlete at the time was Swedish heptathleteCarolina Klüft.[13]
At the2011 World Youth Championships in Athletics inLille, France, Thiam finished fourth in the heptathlon with a total of 5366 points. Then, as a first-year junior, she finished 14th at the2012 World Junior Championships in Athletics in the heptathlon with a total of 5384 points.[5]
On 3 February 2013, Thiam broke the junior world indoor record in thepentathlon at a meeting inGhent with a total of 4558 points, breaking her personal best in four of the five events.[14]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.[15] 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 theIAAF, athletics' international governing body.[16]
On 18 July 2013, she won the gold medal in the heptathlon at theEuropean Junior Championships inRieti, Italy achieving a new Belgian record of 6298 points.[5]
In 2014, Thiam won the bronze medal for the heptathlon at theEuropean Athletics Championships staged inZürich, Switzerland.[5]
In 2015, she won the silver medal in the pentathlon at theEuropean Indoor Championships held inPrague and also claimed silver in the high jump at theEuropean Under-23 Championships inTallinn, Estonia.[5]
On 13 August 2016, Thiam won the gold medal for the heptathlon at theOlympic Games inRio de Janeiro with a score of 6810 points, achieving personal best marks in five of the seven disciplines and defeating reigning Olympic and world championJessica Ennis-Hill ofGreat Britain.[17] At 21-years-old, she was the youngest Olympic heptathlon gold medalist in history.[18][19] She was elected Belgian flag bearer at the Olympic closing ceremony.[20]
On 3 March 2017, Thiam won the pentathlon at the2017 European Indoor Championships inBelgrade with a total of 4870 points.[5]
On 28 May 2017, she won the heptathlon at theHypo-Meeting inGötzis, 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 behindJackie Joyner-Kersee ofUSA and Sweden'sCarolina Klüft. Her 59.32mjavelin throw in Götzis broke theBelgian record for the women's individual event.[18]
On 6 August 2017, Thiam went into theWorld 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.[18]
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On 10 August 2018, she won the gold medal at theEuropean Athletics Championships,[5] 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 theDécastar meeting held inTalence, France setting a women's heptathlon high jump world record of 2.02 m (6 ft7+1⁄2 in).[21]
On 2 October 2019, she went again into theWorld 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'sKatarina 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 theEuropean Indoor Championships inToruń, Poland with a total of 4904 points.[22]
On 5 August 2021, at the postponed2020 Tokyo Games, she successfully defended her Olympic title with a score of 6791 points.[5]
At the2022 World Athletics Championships held inEugene, Oregon, Thiam claimed her second world gold medal on 18 July with a total of 6947 points.[23]
On 3 March 2023, at theEuropean Indoor Championships inIstanbul, she broke the pentathlon world record set in the sameAtaköy Arena back in2012 by Ukraine’sNataliya 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.[10][11] 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.
Thiam is a member of RFCL Athlétisme, an athletics club operating under the aegis of the Technical and Sports Department of theRoyal Football Club de Liège. She was coached by Belgian formerdecathleteRoger Lespagnard[24] for 14 years but she put an end to their collaboration in October 2022.[25]
Besides being a professional athlete, Thiam studiedgeography at theUniversity of Liège.[26] "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.[27] She graduated from university with a bachelor degree in September 2019.[28]
Thiam is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador forUNICEF Belgium.[19]
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All information fromWorld Athletics profile unless otherwise noted.[5]
| 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 | WLNR | |||
| 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 | WLNR |
| 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 | |
| 2025 | World Championships | Tokyo, Japan | – | Heptathlon | DNF |
| Event | Performance | Points | Venue | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 m hurdles | 13.21 s | 1093 | Eugene, OR, United States | 17 July 2022 | |
| High jump | 2.02 m | 1264 | Talence, France | 22 June 2019 | WHB |
| Shot put | 15.54 m | 897 | Paris, France | 8 August 2024 | |
| 200 metres | 24.37 s | 945 | Gaurain-Ramecroix, Belgium | 18 May 2019 | [note 1] |
| Long jump | 6.86 m | 1125 | Birmingham, United Kingdom | 18 August 2019 | NR[note 2] |
| Javelin throw | 59.32 m | 1041 | Götzis, Austria | 28 May 2017 | NR |
| 800 metres | 2:10.62 min | 956 | Paris, France | 9 August 2024 | |
| Heptathlon | 7013 pts | PB total: 7321 | Götzis, Austria | 28 May 2017 | NR, 4th of all time |
| Event | Performance | Points | Venue | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60 m hurdles | 8.23 s | 1077 | Belgrade, Serbia | 3 March 2017 | |
| High jump | 1.96 m | 1184 | Belgrade, Serbia | 3 March 2017 | |
| Shot put | 15.54 m | 897 | Istanbul, Turkey | 3 March 2023 | |
| Long jump | 6.79 m | 1102 | Liévin, France | 1 March 2020 | NR |
| 800 metres | 2:13.60 min | 913 | Istanbul, Turkey | 3 March 2023 | |
| Pentathlon | 5055 pts | PB total: 5173 | Istanbul, Turkey | 3 March 2023 | WR |
In 2017, Thiam officially becameUNICEF Ambassador.[43]
Adrianna Sułek held the world pentathlon record for six seconds but Nafissatou Thiam now claims that coveted crown.
| Olympic Games | ||
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| Preceded by | Flagbearer for Belgium(withFélix Denayer) Tokyo 2020 | Succeeded by Incumbent |
| Pentathlon |
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| Heptathlon |
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| Pentathlon |
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| Heptathlon |
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| Pentathlon |
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 Belgium at the Olympics – Post-war Belgian Olympic champions (women) | |
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World Athlete of the Year (women) | |
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