No British woman has retained an Olympic track and field title and today in Rio, heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill will start her bid to become the first.
Ennis-Hill will be up early. She is fourth on in the opening event on the track, the 100m hurdles, her first discipline of seven, and her mind will surely go back four years to this time, this moment and this disbelief at the London Olympics.
When she walked into the arena then, the noise was just deafening and she was just amazed. When the crowd silenced, it was almost eerie - and how inspired she became.
Ennis-Hill burst from her blocks to run a national record of 12.54 which set her on the way to becoming the Olympic champion.
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Now she is back, as the world champion again after her glory in Beijing 12 months ago, the year she returned to the sport after becoming a mum in 2014.
It is her final Olympics and among her rivals will be part of the legacy that has been created in Britain in the heptathlon - Katarina Johnson-Thompson, the European indoor pentathlon champion.
KJT, 23, will pose a big threat to Ennis-Hill, 30, as will Canada’s world No. 1 Brianne Theisen-Eaton, 27.
In the first heat of the hurdles (scheduled for 2.59pm CET), Ennis-Hill is drawn in lane seven with Theisen-Eaton in lane eight. And just who will take the early advantage?
Theisen-Eaton leads the world rankings with 6765 points after her victory in Götzis in May, followed by Ennis-Hill with 6733 from Ratingen in June, while the Netherlands’ Anouk Vetter is fresh from home glory last month at the European Athletics Championships in Amsterdam where she won with 6626.
Vetter is third in the world rankings where Johnson-Thompson (6304) is 17th but the Briton has much to prove. In Beijing last summer, she failed to register a mark in the long jump and ended up 28th and now she wants to put that right.
But can Ennis-Hill become the first British woman to keep hold of her Olympic crown?
“I see it as a massive challenge for me,” she said, speaking to sportinglife.com. “I feel like the odds are a little bit against me because it's a huge thing to achieve. It's a really amazing position to be in.
“I relish this opportunity to go out there and see if I can do something really amazing at this stage in my career.”