Jessica Ennis-Hill wins heptathlon gold at 2015 World Championships in Beijing

Jessica Ennis-Hill completed a remarkable comeback in her first major tournament for three years by winning a second World Championships heptathlon gold medal in Beijing on Sunday.

Ennis-Hill garnered 6,669 points, beating into second place Canada’s Brianne Theisen Eaton, who had 6,554.

But there was drama in the first of three events when an astonishing show of bravado by Johnson-Thompson spectatularly backfired as she fouled out with all three efforts in the long jump, her strongest discipline.

“Generally, I’m really happy to be in this position right now”.

Ennis-Hill, by contrast, has been relentlessly consistent – a solid 12.91secs in the 100m hurdles, an equal season’s best with 1.86m in the high jump, 13.73m in the shot put and 23.42 seconds in the 200m.

“I didn’t know whether I was in a shape that was good enough to come to the World Championships so I was really pleasantly surprised by my performances and particularly the hurdles”.

‘I can’t believe I’m in the Bird’s Nest. He returned and won silver at the Moscow World Championships and at the London Olympics. My family are incredible, I have to thank my husband for all his support and my little boy.

The 29-year-old is on 2192 points after the first morning session, with fellow Briton and medal threat Katarina Johnson-Thompson second.

The big shock was Theisen-Eaton fluffing her lines by only clearing 1.80m, which meant that she slipped to fifth – already 87 points behind Ennis-Hill and 57 behind Johnson-Thompson.

Unless disaster strikes in the 800m, where Ennis-Hill has a personal best of 2:07.81, almost four seconds ahead of Broersen, the title is hers.

On leaving son Reggie behind, she added: ‘This has been the hardest year ever; London (2012) was hard with different pressures and challenged but this year, juggling mummy duties with training, is so hard.

“He’s starting to question ‘Should I have come out here?’ He’s got one more round to go and he will be aware of what Justin Gatlin did in his semi-final”.

Ennis-Hill also had words of consolation for Katarina Johnson-Thompson who had suffered a nightmare event in Beijing. Before the Anniversary Games I was not sure if I was going to be ready.

Muir chose to go with Dibaba and Kipyegon at the front of the field, opening up plenty of space between her and the following pack for the final sprint to claim third in a time of 4:07.95.

It left Johnson-Thompson visibly shell-shocked yet she continued in the javelin and 800m – although she had no choice under IAAF guidelines, with British Athletics confirming there would have be a medical reason to withdraw and medical confirmation she could compete again in the long jump.

“It got tough towards the end today”, said Wang after losing for the first time since May 2014.