THANKS for the memories, Jess – Britain’s greatest female athlete, a national icon and symbol of the 2012 Olympics.
A standard-bearer for women and mothers, role model for a generation, who returned to the track a year after giving birth to conquer the world once more.
And the embodiment of Sheffield steel, too, someone who never forgot her roots, her background, what drove her to succeed time and time again.
Jessica Ennis-Hill has won every major honour available — Olympic gold, Olympic silver, two world titles and one world silver.
Added to that a World Indoor title, a European gold and a Commonwealth bronze, as well as British records.
I have been fortunate to witness them all in person.
Yesterday’s announcement that she was hanging up her spikes came as no surprise to those of us who spoke to her hours after she won Olympic heptathlon silver in Rio in August.
The sense talking to her as dawn broke over a new chapter of her career was that her 800 metres run in Brazil was the last time we would see her competing on a track.
Finishing at the top of her game, injury-free and with another Olympic gong in her pocket to take home to son Reggie, now two.
Her coach Toni Minichiello had told her to remember the line from Rocky Balboa, “don’t leave anything in the basement”, and only retire if you have no unfinished business and no regrets.
She has now reached that point, with the luxury of being able to chose when to quit rather than being told.
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She has also made no secret of her desire to have more children and that would have formed part of her decision.
The 30-year-old — aptly forged in Sheffield — had to settle for silver in Rio despite the mother of all battles when she finished with 6,775 points. It was her best tally since winning gold at London 2012, as she was pipped by 21-year-old rising star Nafissatou Thiam of Belgium.
Ennis-Hill was once a rising star herself, taking bronze at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006 at the age of 20.
Shrugging off the “tadpole” tag that Kelly Sotherton — who won gold ahead of her Down Under — had given her because of her small stature, a tag she loathed.
Some had written her off because of her size, claiming she would never make an athlete. She proved them all wrong.
For more than a decade, I’ve watched her develop off the track from a hesitant teenager to a mature, confident woman, outspoken on controversial issues ranging from Ched Evans to the demolition of Sheffield’s Don Valley Stadium — where she first went along to a kids’ athletics session — and doping.
Ennis-Hill is still waiting for her world silver from 2011 to be upgraded to a third world title after Russian Tatyana Chernova was caught cheating.
She still lives in the Steel City surrounded by family and old friends, married to construction worker Andy, who she met at the local comprehensive and shunning the limelight.
When a few years ago British Athletics chiefs wanted her to move to a new training base in Loughborough, she told them where to stick it.
She loves the city — it kept her grounded during the pressure of being the poster girl for London 2012 — and because I’m from Sheffield, too, I know the city loves her.
Humble, too — she always asks about me and my family.
And funny — she joked not long ago to me about the earliest time it was acceptable to climb into your pyjamas after tea (dinner for people south of Sheffield).
Ennis-Hill also has nerves of steel, competitive to the end. Driven by not wanting to let anyone down. Most of all herself.
The image of her crossing the line, arms outstretched, on August 4, 2012 — better known as Super Saturday — to win gold will stay long in the memory. Similarly, her comeback to win the world title in Beijing last summer, months after giving birth to Reggie, defied the odds.
And, just as at the age of 15, when she wrote a letter appealing for a Sports Aid grant with ambitions to "compete at major championships”, the world is at her feet.
A true ambassador for the sport. A true sporting great.
Asked how she would like to be remembered, her response was simply: “As a nice person.”
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