Gold medallist, former Olympian, and OMEGA ambassador Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill is the April cover star for our Something About Time watch special. Read all about it below.
For our April ‘Time’ special, journalist Sam Moore travelled to Sheffield to meet Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, the former Olympic champion, European champion and three-time world champion heptathlete to chat about watches, winning, and having the time of her life in Olympic retirement.
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What’s more, the OMEGA ambassador and unofficial poster girl for the 2012 Olympic Games revealed she’s been a keen watch lover since her earliest years. “When I was a young girl, I always wanted a beautiful watch like an Omega,” she tells Moore. “As a young kid, seeing all these images of the Olympics and having aspirations of being an Olympian, Omega was always there. When I got the chance to work with them, the synergy was just there and they embodied everything I am through sport.”
The Sheffield-born daughter of a painter and a social worker, Ennis-Hill became the face of the 2012 London Olympics where Great Britain came third in the medal table, securing 29 golds, becoming the country’s most successful Games in more than a century. Ennis-Hill was at the heart of everything that happened that summer. From the record breaking audience of more than 16 million that saw her claim gold to fronting mass marketing campaigns up and down the country, her smiley face and grounded charm are synonymous with that historic British summer.
“OMEGA was always there. When I got the chance to work with them, the synergy was just there and they embodied everything I am through sport” – Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill
Since hanging up her professional spikes a decade ago, in 2016, Ennis-Hill has kept herself busy, diversifying her talents into tech and podcasts, though still with a focus on health and fitness at the core. She’s now also a mother of two, having given birth to her eldest son, Reggie, in July 2014, while still competing at the highest levels of athletics. Just a year later, she won her third world championships in Beijing.
“It was a challenge becoming a mother for the first time and trying to get back into sport. There wasn’t anyone I knew who had done it. We went into it blindly,” she admits to Moore. Yet doubt a mother at your peril. “There were a lot of people who wrote me off or would say I wouldn’t be at the level I was. I felt that a lot. But as a female athlete, you’re so determined to be the best you can be and then you make that athlete a mother and that baby is your everything, then you’re motivated to a whole new level.”
Throughout the years, Ennis-Hill notes, she has received ample backing from OMEGA, which also supports other athletes like the British men’s curling team – who captured the hearts of the nation at the recent Winter Olympics – and Keely Hodgkinson, the 800m gold medallist who calls Ennis-Hill one of her inspirations. The importance of such backing is not lost on Ennis-Hill: “Sports have a certain amount of funding, but you need to have sponsors come on board so that you’re seen by more people. To be connected to a brand like Omega, it’s a massive boost to athletes that perhaps don’t see as much of the limelight as others.”
Read more from our exclusive cover interview with Jessica in the April issue of Something About Time. Get your copy here.
Shoot styled by Marcella Martinelli.
Looks featured:
1 – Cover look suit from Edeline Lee
2 – Shirt, tie, trousers: APAR EDITIONS, Shoes: Gina Couture
3- Jacket from Stella McCartney via Designer Exchange, Trousers by APAR EDITIONS, Shoes by Gina Couture.
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