Jessica Ennis-Hill has today announced her retirement from athletics after making 'one of the toughest decisions' of her life.
The Great Britain star, whose career reached its greatest heights when she won the Olympic heptathlon title in London in 2012, has decided the time is 'right' to bow out now.
Ennis-Hill, 30, was the Golden Girl of those Games and she lived up to all the expectation, hype and pressure to deliver a sensational performance.
The defence of her title in Rio saw Ennis-Hill win silver this summer and the questions then began as to whether she would retire or take part in one final major event at next year's IAAF World Championships in London, on the stage of such wonderful 2012 memories.
Her decision to retire brings to an end to one of the finest careers by a European athlete, from a woman who became a mum when her son Reggie was born in 2014 and then returned the following year to regain the world title.
But that desire to achieve was shown clearly and brilliantly to the world 11 years ago in Kaunas when, with 5891 points, she won the heptathlon at the European Athletics Junior Championships.
The seed had been set for a future where she would just grow in strength and become such a formidable force in the multi-events and impress individually too.
She was Commonwealth Games heptathlon bronze medallist in Melbourne in 2006, proof of how she could handle herself in the senior ranks, and then in 2007 she won bronze in the 100m hurdles at the European Athletics Under-23 Championships in Debrecen.
It was in that year she was honoured by European Athletics as the Rising Star in the European Athletics awards - and 2009 was the moment when she became the major force of the event.
With an outstanding display, she won the world title in Berlin with 6731 points and then, 12 months later, followed that up with gold at the European Athletics Championships in Barcelona with a championship record of 6823.
Now the path was set for London, the Olympics and the moment that would define her.
The noise of 80,000 fans when she entered the arena on the first morning of the track and field programme was unreal and showing little nerves, Ennis-Hill won the opening event, the 100m hurdles, in an overall British record of 12.54. There was no way back for the rest as she took gold with a national record of 6955 points.
Her triumph came on what has become known as Super Saturday in Britain - as she won in the same hour as teammates Mo Farah (10,000m) and Greg Rutherford (long jump) also took gold.
And the autumn then brought more recognition with Ennis-Hill named as the female European Athlete of the Year.
2009 World champion
— European Athletics (@EuroAthletics) October 13, 2016
2010 European champion
2012 Olympic champion
2015 World champion
Congratulations on a brilliant career, Jessica! pic.twitter.com/fg3PGbCdVM
Injury ruined her 2013 season before the following year she announced she was pregnant with son Reggie who was born in the summer of 2014.
A year later, amazingly she was back on top of the podium after regaining the world crown in Beijing (6669) before Rio, where she scored 6775 but was beaten by Belgium's young star Nafissatou Thiam (6810).
It was like the handing over of the crown, a crown that Jessica Ennis-Hill wore so proudly for so long.