Jessica Ennis-Hill – who won a silver medal for the heptathlon in this year’s Olympic Games – has explained that she faced many challenges on her Rio 2016 journey.

One of the biggest of these, however, was getting back into training following the birth of her son, Reggie, in July 2014.

“When you have your first child and you’re pregnant, most mums don’t really think about how much their body will change,” she told The Telegraph.

“I could never have imagined how hard it would be. You think 'I’ll have a baby, it’ll be fine and he’ll just lie there quietly while I train’. But it’s never like that.”

Stressing that her own physical journey was obviously very different to that of the average woman, Ennis-Hill went on to criticise the enormous pressures that new mothers can face when it comes to their weight following pregnancy.

She said: “It doesn’t happen overnight. I was an athlete before I had Reggie so my body did get back quicker than your average woman.

“It’s important for women to know you don’t have to get back to your tiny figure or whatever you were before in a matter of weeks.”

Rio 2016: Olympian Jessica Ennis-Hill defends mums from body-shamers