Three-time Olympic heptathlon champion Nafissatou Thiam misses the indoor season

Three-time Olympic heptathlon champion Nafissatou Thiam will skip the indoor season and focus on her preparations for the upcoming World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September.

“We can confirm that Nafissatou Thiam will not participate in the indoor season. She will miss the European and World Indoor Championships”, says a statement to the media from her team.

The European Indoor Championships are scheduled for March 6-9 in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, and the World Indoor Championships will be held in Nanjing, China, between March 21-23. The World Athletics Championships are scheduled for September 13-21 in Tokyo, Japan.

Nafissatou Thiam is a three-time European indoor champion in the heptathlon, winning titles in 2017, 2021 and 2023. The gold medal at the World Indoor Championships is the only major honour she has yet to win. The Belgian has only tried to do so in Poland in 2014.

She is the first athlete with three multi-event gold medals at the Olympic Games, winning the heptathlon at the Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympics.