'She's world-class': Niamh Emerson brings Ennis-Hill gang back together

Nearly five years ago, Britain’s greatest female athlete, Jessica Ennis-Hill announced she was walking away from track and field after narrowly missing out on gold at the Rio Olympics. “It’s inevitable, isn’t it?” she told reporters, as her coach, Toni Minichiello, listened in. “The older ones have to call it a day, the younger ones come through, and the sport continues.”

But now, the Guardian can reveal, the old band is back together – with Ennis-Hill acting as mentor, and Minichiello as coach, to the brilliant young heptathlete Niamh Emerson in her quest to become Britain’s next big multi-event star. And, three weeks in, the 21-year-old, who as a teenager won a Commonwealth Games bronze medal and a European Indoor Championships silver , says she is already feeling the benefits.

“The training is harder, definitely,” Emerson says, smiling. “I’ve had a big shock. But it’s good. We are building it up at the moment. Everything’s just a lot more intense; especially in the gym.”

At this point Minichiello can’t resist piping up. “It’s already a huge concern to me that she thinks her training is hard,” he says, deadpan. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Emerson laughs in response, before explaining why she has made the switch. “I needed a different setup. And so I spoke to Jess – who has literally done it all – and then Toni.

“Jess and I are very different as athletes and in height,” adds Emerson, who is 5ft 11in. “But that’s the nice thing about the heptathlon. There are so many different routes to a good score.”

It helped that Ennis-Hill had warned her what to expect. “I’ve been trying not to scare her too much and thankfully she’s a strong 800m runner,” she says. “But those 800m that we used to do are gruelling; oh, and the hill runs!”

It is early days, but the signs are hugely promising. Emerson’s talent is undeniable: she holds the best pentathlon score by a teenager and has scored 6,253 points over the heptathlon, just shy of Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s under-20 national record. But what has also deeply impressed Ennis-Hill and Minichello is her temperament.

“Niamh’s personal history tells you straight away that she is at a world-class performance level,” says Minichiello. “And scoring 6,253 points is equal to a top-10 performance at a global championship. There’s still a rawness in terms of development. But, like Jess, she 100% has the right attitude.”

So how does the partnership work? “I’ve just been at the other end of the phone whenever Niamh has wanted to chat things through with regards to training, injuries and competition experience, offering a bit of help where I can,” explains Ennis-Hill, who has a psychology degree from the University of Sheffield; the same subject that Emerson is studying at Loughborough.

“Meanwhile Toni has great experience in helping to develop an athlete’s potential, particularly at this stage,” she adds. “He is structuring and putting together the right programme for Niamh.”

“A lot of people start mentoring for themselves,” says Minichiello. “But Jess is not like that. It’s so good for Niamh to have someone who has been right at the top giving her an honest appraisal.”

After being injured for 14 months after partially tearing a patella tendon, Emerson is cautious about making too many predictions for 2021. However she confirms that Tokyo is at the front and centre of her thoughts.

“I have definitely been in hibernation with my injury and then with Covid happening,” she says. “During the first lockdown, I had to train on the golf course next to my home in Derbyshire, and in my garden. So I’m not entirely sure exactly where I am in terms of the heptathlon. But we’re pretty much thinking of Götzis in late May and then on to the Olympics.”

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Meanwhile Minichiello is relishing the chance to show he can take another athlete to the very top, having guided Ennis-Hill from promising schoolgirl to a four-time world title winning and London 2012 Olympic champion.

“I always say that 6,600 points is the magic figure for a medal in a global championship, and Niamh is only 350 points away,” adds Minichello. “That’s only 50 points per event, when you chop it up.

“And when you look across the events, she is super solid. Not many heptathletes can run 2:09 for 800m. A 1.86m high jump is world class in multi-events too. She also has a 13m shot put – if that gets to 14m it’ll put her in the top six. Her long jump of 6.41m and low 40s javelin are also good, although her 200m needs a bit of work.

“The other thing is she’s a tough cookie: I know that because I have seen what she has done at championships.”

So could she join Mary Peters, Denise Lewis, Ennis-Hill, and Johnson-Thompson in the pantheon of British multi-event greats? “If she can develop on what she has already achieved and move forward, I think she can definitely be up there,” says Ennis-Hill. And there is surely no finer endorsement than that.