Olympic hero Jessica Ennis-Hill eyeing World Championships comeback after

Her rivalry with Jessica Ennis-Hill remains – for those who like a bit of needle and confrontation – annoyingly and genuinely friendly.

“I really want to see her in Beijing – you want to compete against the best in the world and considering her recent performances she should certainly be there”, said Johnson-Thompson, speaking at the event, a partnership with British Athletics that builds on Sainsbury’s support for the 2012 Paralympics and recognises that sport can unite and inspire children of all ages.

Yet for all their smiles, which were as warm and pleasant as the Saturday afternoon in east London, it is still not known whether Ennis-Hill and Johnson-Thompson will be duking it out for gold at the world championships – or whether one or both will be sitting on couches watching from home. “I’m really happy with this weekend”, Ennis-Hill said.

“I want to go because I want to be competitive”. Lining up alongside some of the fastest women in the world, she then repeated the feat with a time of 23.49sec in the 200m to complete a ideal hat-trick after her 100m hurdles season’s best 12.79sec set on Friday night. She also dismissed suggestions that she might not go, pointing out that she had similar problems before finishing fifth at the world championships two years ago.

“There is no point in going [to Beijing] and finishing, fifth, eighth or 20th”, he said. “I wouldn’t go, I’d just train, do some platform work and then move on next year towards Rio, which is the critical thing”.

Minichiello, though, said he would have to sift through tranches of data before making any decision.

“It’s all about Rio. There’s no British woman who has retained an Olympic title, so that’d be nice”.

But Johnson-Thompson is in no doubt what she should do.

But she said that her previous expectation of aiming for gold without settling for anything lesser had since dipped, and that “coming away with a medal would be a great achievement for me, but obviously I’m always going for the gold”.

The Liverpool athlete said: “Considering the preparation I’ve had for it I’m over the moon”.

She added: “I was anxious about missing Beijing before this competition but now I’m completely fine”.

“I need to concentrate on Beijing, which I’ve got four weeks for to do a proper build-up to a competition for once”.

In yesterday’s long jump, the eagerly awaited battle between Ennis-Hill and Katarina Johnson-Thompson, the pretender to the Olympic heptathlon crown, never really materialised.

Today, Greg Rutherford competes in the long jump, David Rudisha goes in the 800m and Dina Asher-Smith will aim to threaten her own British record in the 100m. “I had surgery last year, I was on crutches, so I didn’t expect to be this strong”.

The double Olympic champion strode to an imperious win in the 3,000m and then said: “It was wonderful to get the support I got, it was incredible, it just reminded me of 2012”. I’m just glad to be able to compete.’.

“I’m trying to keep calm so I can execute in the final”. ‘I’ve had an wonderful career already and achieved so much. “I need to sit down with Toni”, Ennis-Hill explained.