Jessica reaches end of the road in Rio with silver medal

The 30-year-old comfortably won the seventh and final event, but her time of 7.47 seconds meant Thiam could not be hauled back. This time it was pure torture.

Her high jump, shot put and long jump were all leading marks, cancelling out her disastrous 200m, which was 25th fastest of the field.

Ennis-Hill produced a gutsy display of front-running in a bid to make up the near 10 seconds she had to finish ahead of Thiam to deny her gold, but it was not enough.

Theisen-Eaton, who had ended the first day of competition in sixth place, worked her way up to the medals with 6.48m in the long jump, 47.36m in the javelin and 2:09.50 in the 800m.

She was 100 points behind her compatriot in fourth place after four events.

“I’m so proud of these nine girls but there’s about 50 more behind us that got us here”, she told the BBC.

“I knew she (Thiam) was going to run hard”.

Following on from day one, it looked like Jess was going to defend her Olympic title and take home another Gold medal, but it didn’t exactly go her way last night.

Make no mistake, Jessica Ennis-Hill’s silver medal performance in Rio was one of her finest.

“I’m just really emotional”, she said. “I don’t want to cry on TV but these years have been fantastic so just really proud”.

Thiam’s rise has been rapid and staggering.

Ennis-Hill’s run earned her 1,149 points, putting her into the early lead of the seven-discipline event.

We can’t even begin to think how much training that Ennis-Hill puts in and how taxing it must be for her to be away from her family whilst she is training and competing. Not what she would have wanted but still wonderful from @J_Ennis.

Toni Minichiello, her outstanding coach, won’t rush her into a decision but brought up the subject soon after Ennis-Hill had narrowly failed to become the first British female track athlete ever to retain an Olympic title.

Britain’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson had gone into the competition with gold-winning ambition but her medal hopes slipped through her fingers as the javelin competition played out.

Ennis-Hill sent her opening throw beyond 45m (784 points), sparking debate that it could be a gold-winning throw.

Ennis-Hill performed well – indeed her score was her best since London 2012, since which she has given birth to her now two-year-old son Reggie. But her gutsy display wasn’t quite enough.

A remarkable head-to-head between Johnson-Thompson and Thiam saw them propel each other to a new Olympic Best in the heptathlon, with them both eventually bowing out at 1.98m after three failures at 2.01m.