Thiam thinking of pain, not history after three-peat

SORRY, but history wasn't the first thing that crossed Nafissatou Thiam's mind after her third Olympic gold in the women's heptathlon.

- WILL GRAVES

The sport that challenges her to compete across seven trackand-field disciplines over 30 or so hours doesn't allow much time for perspective. Not in the moment anyway. When Thiam hit the finish line in the 800 the final event. at the Paris Olympics on Friday night in a personal best time of 2 minutes, 10.62 seconds to become only the second woman ever to win three straight golds in the same track and field event at the Games, there was the familiar mix of exhaustion and elation as she fell to the purple track at Stade de France. "I thought all this pain, hard work, sacrifice, all those moments where I felt lonely, all that pain, all that hard work, all of that paid off," the 29