Britain’s Ennis-Hill wins heptathlon at Athletics Worlds

Jessica Ennis-Hill has won heptathlon gold at the World Athletics Championships in Beijing.

Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s World Championship medal hopes have gone up in smoke after she failed to record a distance in the long jump.

Johnson-Thompson was smooth and steady as she posted a time of 13.37sec, a personal best by 0.07sec.

“The first one was unfortunate”.

Johnson-Thompson’s frustration was one of few negatives for Britain on the second morning of competition, with team captain Martyn Rooney leading by example. At that point, it was all or nothing for me. I want to save my legs’.

“In 2012 I was definitely very focused just wanting to do everything right and not make any mistakes”. In an instant, the contest turned.

A javelin throw of 42.51m then put Ennis-Hill on the brink before she wrapped up the formalities with a rousing finish, overtaking Theisen-Eaton on the back straight.

With a season’s best jump of 6.43 meters, Ennis-Hill closed in on the world title, extending her overall lead with two events to go. Canada’s Brianne Theisen-Eaton trailed in 115 points down in silver.

The bronze went to Laura Ikauniece-Admidina with a Latvian record 6,516 points.

Ennis-Hill’s gold follows Mo Farah’s 10,000m success on Saturday 22 August.

Ennis-Hill had been undecided whether to come to Beijing and only confirmed her participation after encouraging performances in the hurdles, long jump and javelin at the Anniversary Games in London.

That she would not be able to recoup the emotional cost of leaving son Reggie at home, 5,000 miles away in Sheffield. She only returned to competition in Manchester in May.

Fastest in the 200 was Johnson-Thompson, in 23.08 seconds, as she chalked up a total of 3,925 points to climb from ninth to second position.

There were questions as to why she carried on given she has the long jump on Thursday, but British Athletics confirmed rules state there would have be a medical reason to withdraw and medical confirmation she could compete again.

“This time previous year I’d just had my son and now I am world champion”.

With Ennis-Hill having nailed her own effort in the second round it was arguably a gamble worth taking.

“I’m lost for words”. “To be honest me and my coach didn’t talk about the gold medal, I didn’t think about it”.

Thorne said he was upset the Russians didn’t show, because not having the best athletes in the race isn’t as exciting for a sport that needs as much excitement as it can get. But this year juggling all my mummy duties and training has just been so hard.

“Everything has been so hard”.

“I got a no-jump in the first round and that puts you on the back foot”, she explained. “I just stumbled. I really don’t know what happened”.