Olympic gold, fairy-tale wedding, CBE - it's been a glittering two years for Jessica Ennis-Hill. And despite her recent injury setback, the future’s looking dazzling
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The golden girl goes glam
Jessica wears DRESS, Hervé Léger, from harrods.com
Becoming Olympic champion demands extremes of dedication and hard work, but in many ways that is the more straightforward side of the job for Jessica Ennis-Hill. Six days a week, injuries permitting, she is at the track or gym honing her tautly contoured body. It’s on the seventh, when she attends to her sponsorship commitments, that things can get complicated – and today’s photo shoot to promote Jessica as the ‘face’ of Olay Essentials Glow Perfectors is no exception.
The plan had been to meet in a city centre studio close to her home just outside Sheffield. But at the eleventh hour, a power-supply problem forced us to relocate to a converted 17th-century barn on a farm bordering the Peak District. The smell of manure is stomach-churning, but Jessica is unfazed. ‘Glamour shoots are often a contradiction in terms,’ she says with a knowing grin.
'People expect me to have changed. But I’m still me'
Of more than 500 athletes who made up Team GB for London 2012, no one was placed on a higher pedestal than our Jess. As her image gazed down from countless billboards, she carried the hopes of the nation. But beyond her looks and sporting prowess, it was her girl-next-door demeanour that sealed her position as Olympic poster girl, and she has sustained this even in the heady aftermath of her heptathlon victory. ‘People expect me to have changed,’ she says. ‘But I’m still me.’
Except, of course, that she is now Mrs Ennis-Hill, wife of her childhood sweetheart Andy. Their May wedding was, says Jessica, ‘the best day ever’. Better than winning Olympic gold? ‘It’s so hard to compare,’ she says, squirming, ‘because that was also the best day. But at the Olympics I was wishing every moment away – I couldn’t wait till I had crossed that finishing line. I wanted our wedding day to last for ever.’
VEST, Reiss, reiss.com. SKIRT, McQ Alexander McQueen, from my-wardrobe.com
She and Andy, a 30-year-old construction site manager, declined big-money offers from magazines so that they could enjoy the day with 120 relatives and friends. The intimacy of the occasion did nothing, however, to calm Jessica’s nerves.
The girl who just months earlier had faced down 80,000 roaring stadium spectators admits to quivering as her father led her down the aisle. ‘At the Olympics, you draw on the crowd, but you can also block everyone out because you are so focused on what you have to do. But walking into that church – I’d never had to do that before.’ Her jitters were much the same as any other bride’s. ‘I just wanted everyone to have a good time and was nervous about Andy seeing my dress.’ She originally envisaged wearing a structured sheath but opted in the end for a magnificently ruffled Monique Lhuillier gown. ‘Usually I show Andy everything I buy, but he hadn’t seen it and it was unlike anything I would normally have chosen.’
Many doomsayers warned Jessica that her Olympic high was likely to be followed by a post-2012 low. Happily that was not her experience, and certainly the wedding helped prolong her euphoria. But an achilles tendon injury has now bumped her back down to earth. Instead of defending her World Championship title in Moscow last month, she was forced to stay at home. From her sofa, she tweeted congratulations to Mo Farah and encouragement to upcoming British rival Katarina Johnson-Thompson, but she cannot conceal her disappointment.
‘It’s massively frustrating and obviously I was thinking about what I could have achieved there,’ she says. But previous setbacks – in 2008 a career-threatening triple stress fracture led to her withdrawing from the Beijing Olympics – have taught her to be fatalistic. ‘When you’re training year after year you don’t stop to reflect much,’ she says. ‘But being injured makes me appreciative of what I have achieved, and hungrier to go on.’
Jessica clinching heptathlon gold with victory in the 800m at the London Olympics last year; receiving her medal; with Andy at their wedding in
Jessica is warm and thoughtful, but possesses a natural reserve which has often played to her advantage – being hard to read is a bonus when it comes to mind games between competitors. She gained a 2:2 in psychology at Sheffield University and understands, on a theoretical as well as a visceral level, what makes her tick. Essentially, she says, athletics is ‘an individual event – you against yourself, your best versus your inner fears’.
Now 27, Jessica grew up in the Highfield area of Sheffield, an inner-city neighbourhood characterised by back-to-back housing and a diverse racial mix. Her mother, Alison Powell, was a one-time rebel, ‘all naughtiness and pink hair’ when she met Vinnie Ennis, a Jamaican-born decorator 14 years her senior. Alison became pregnant shortly afterwards and was just 20 when Jessica was born. Three years later a second daughter, Carmel, completed the family.
Jessica collecting her CBE from Buckingham Palace in February
Money was tight and Vinnie often fitted his job around looking after the girls so that Alison, now a charity project manager, could earn extra cash at a residential rehab centre. Of the two, Jessica was the demanding child who, according to her mother, ‘could create an argument anywhere’. Many of those rows were with Carmel – the sisters fought ferociously, and although it would be simplistic to trace Jessica’s competitive drive back to their squabbles, they were definitely part of the mix.
Alison and Vinnie are the antithesis of pushy parents; Vinnie once told Jessica, ‘If we’d pushed you, you’d have gone the other way.’ But when Jessica was ten and Carmel seven, they sent their daughters to a summer sports camp at Sheffield’s Don Valley Stadium. Jessica was instantly hooked; Carmel was not. And while Jessica went on to shine at school sports, Carmel would do anything to get out of PE lessons and went through a phase of refusing to go to school altogether.
It is only with hindsight that Jessica appreciates what a challenge it was for Carmel to find her own path. ‘Everyone was asking if she was sporty like her big sister, and I can imagine she got sick of it – because I would have done,’ she says. ‘She didn’t want to be like me, and we didn’t get on at all.’
Today, Carmel works as a nursery nurse and she and Jessica are the best of friends. ‘Once you are separated, you realise how much you have in common,’ says Jessica. ‘We have the same sense of humour, we love hanging out together, and she did a great job organising my hen do. She supports me, but she loves her job and she is always telling me stories about her kids. She’s a really kind, loving person.’
'My sister and I have the same sense of humour. She did a great job organising my hen do'
You get the feeling that the qualities Jessica admires in her sister are things she often has to suppress in herself. Being a top athlete involves neurotic levels of self-centredness. ‘You have to be sure that you are eating right, sleeping right – you have to be selfish,’ she admits. In the run-up to the Olympics, Jessica, like every other elite athlete, was using antibacterial sprays and avoided shaking anybody’s hand. And when one of Andy’s brothers turned up at their house with a head cold, she saw red. ‘He’d meant no harm, but Olympic planning is all about the small details.’
DRESS, McQ Alexander McQueen, from net-a-porter.com. Shoes, Kurt Geiger London, kurtgeiger.com
The person most adept at walking on the eggshells around her is Andy, who sounds like a saint. ‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Jessica says, ‘but he does know how to make me laugh and he has the knack of always saying the right thing.’ They have known each other since childhood, started dating when Jessica was 18, and she always knew that they would marry. ‘It’s weird, because Mum and Dad never married but I always wanted to,’ she says. ‘There is something very personal about saying your vows and fully committing to each other. We have been together for nine years so in a way nothing has changed, but I do feel different now – that we are more of a team.’ Taking Andy’s name has been her way of underlining their union. ‘I’m known for my name and I am proud of it, but he has been such a big part of my success.’
Jessica remembers being told early in her career that athletics needed to be all-consuming, and that her friends and her boyfriend should be part of the sport. ‘A lot of athletes end up marrying other athletes or their coaches and it is their whole life, but for me it was important to have that separation. Andy has always supported me, but he is just as ambitious and I love that about him.’
Jessica with Andy at their wedding in May
Their home – they have just moved to a four-bed detached house in the Derbyshire countryside – is not a shrine to her achievements. Her father keeps many of her trophies – ‘he’s got things on display going back years’ – but she keeps her medals in a box. Her success means that she now enjoys luxury holidays in Mauritius rather than caravan breaks in Wales.
She also dresses in Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney, rather than the charity-shop clothes and hand-me-downs that were a feature of her childhood (although she is a Reiss and French Connection fan as well). But old habits die hard – when she removes her trainers to slip into some Kurt Geiger heels for our shoot, I notice a hole in her sock. ‘It’s silly – I’ve got so many pairs, but I just find it so hard to throw things away,’ she says.
She may earn over £1 million a year in sponsorship deals (as well as being the face of Olay Essentials Glow Perfectors, she is sponsored by Adidas, which supplies her with all the socks she could need!), but her feet are still firmly on the ground, and that ground, she says, is in Sheffield. She resisted attempts by the head of UK Athletics to lure her to London five years ago, and has no intention of moving now. ‘Andy’s job is here, we’re happy with the people we love around us, and that keeps me centred.’
Apart from the odd trip to Buckingham Palace and Downing Street, Jessica’s daily routine is really not so different from the way it would have been had she ended up working at her local recreation centre. Every morning, she walks her labrador Myla before heading off to training.
JESSICA'S WINNERS
Reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn – it’s gripping.
Listening to Jay-Z’s new album Magna Carta Holy Grail. I’m a big hip-hop fan and he and Kanye West are the two artists I’m most likely to have on my iPod when I want a boost during training.
Watching I’m a Coronation Street addict, and Andy and I are box-set geeks. We’ve just watched The Sopranos and Breaking Bad.
Beauty product Olay Essentials Glow Perfectors – they’re amazing all-round moisturisers which suit me whether I’m training or going to a red-carpet event.
Style icon Miranda Kerr always looks stunning and I’m a fan of Victoria Beckham and her designs. My favourite dress of hers was the one I wore for Sports Personality of the Year in 2012.
Person I’d most like to emulate As a young athlete, I always looked up to Denise Lewis. She has achieved so much, yet is so down-to-earth every time I meet her.
Saving up for A Chanel handbag. Actually I’m not saving for it, I’m hoping that Andy will buy it for me! My money is going on another labrador – a friend for Myla.
She always wears Olay Essential Glow Perfectors. ‘There are three different types, but the multi-radiance is the one I use a lot – it’s a lightweight, easy moisturiser with light-reflective particles which give my skin a glow.’ She adds eyeliner, mascara and lipgloss – ‘I’m just like anyone else; I am not going to work without my make-up on!’ – and spends several hours working out and practising her heptathlon disciplines (100m hurdles, shot put, high jump, long jump, javelin, 200m and 800m). At night, if she is not seeing one of her old school friends, she and Andy often flop in front of a box set.
Some of her friends have started having children, ‘and that is definitely something Andy and I want,’ she says, ‘but not quite yet. I’ve got some more competing to do first.’ She knows she’ll never top her Olympic triumph (‘I’ve already had the biggest high of my career’), so you wonder if she was tempted to quit while she was ahead? ‘If I had been older, maybe, but I still feel I want to achieve,’ she says. One of her targets now is to join the elite group of three heptathletes who have broken the 7,000 points barrier (she achieved 6,955 in London). She will be in Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games next year – she has just been appointed a Games ambassador – and is already looking ahead to Rio in 2016.
And after Rio? Has she thought about the day when she is no longer a competitor? For the first time she looks uncertain. ‘I’m not sure what I’ll do when I retire – it is a really strange thought,’ she says. She can’t see herself as a media pundit, and coaching is out – ‘I haven’t got the patience.’ (She openly admits to a love-hate relationship with the heroic architect of her success, Toni Minichiello, who over the years has witnessed the Ennis outbursts the public never gets to see.)
‘What I really like,’ she declares, suddenly inspired, ‘is the work I do with kids.’ She’s currently working with David Beckham on a new programme to get children involved in sport through Sky Sports. ‘I think that will be my future – sharing my experiences with children.’ Which just goes to prove that she really isn’t so different from her sister after all.
Jessica Ennis-Hill is the face of Olay Essentials Glow Perfectors, a range of three moisturisers with an added glow. For further information, visit olay.co.uk
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2417682/Jessica-Ennis-Hill-Olympic-gold-fairy-tale-wedding-CBE-future-looks-dazzling.html#ixzz2ey9akhoy
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