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Ennis off to great start in Gotzis

Jessica Ennis competes in the 110m hurdles © PA Photos

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Jessica Ennis got off to a solid start as she ramped her preparations for this year's World Championships at the Hypo Meeting in Austria.

The World and European champion had previously missed seven weeks of training due to an ankle tendon injury early in the season - an issue that forced her to skip the European Indoors in Paris - leading to fears her unbeaten run in the heptathlon could be under threat.

But she showed few ill-effects from that lay-off in the opening event, the 100m hurdles, winning her heat in a time of 13.03 seconds to lead the field - before escaping a spot of bother to also win the high jump with an effort of 1.91 metres.

The time in the hurdles was outside her personal best of 12.81secs, but was nevertheless sufficient for the 25-year-old to open a 27-point lead over Canada's Jessica Zelinka - with Olympic champion Nataliya Dobrynska a notable 147 points adrift after a lacklustre 14.04secs run.

Dobrynska's 1.82 mark in the high jump saw then saw her fall even further off Ennis' pace, as the Sheffield athlete overcame some struggles at 1.85m and 1.88m to amass 2,239 points overall - 14 more than at the same stage when she won the European Championships - and put down a real marker for the rest of the competition.

"I'm very happy with that," Ennis said. "I was worrying I would go out at 1.85m so it was a big jump to do 1.91m. I jumped at Loughborough and that felt good but before that had only really jumped off my full approach once.

"I was really annoyed with myself in the hurdles. It was perfect conditions and everything was in my favour but I had a shocking start and was hitting hurdles. It was messy and didn't really come together. Hopefully I've made up for it with the high jump."

Ennis later managed 13.94 metres in the shot, 0.31m down on her personal best but still good enough to keep her in front. Lithuania's Austra Skujyte was 120 points behind in second after winning the shot, with Dobrynska creeping up into third.

A personal best over the 200 metres (23.11 seconds) in perfect running conditions late in the day then left Ennis on course for a new personal best, and British record, in the event.

"We'll see how it goes," she said. "I'm very happy but I just want to get some rest and get a good day in tomorrow. I'm not getting too carried away just yet.

"I really hope to start the day with a good positive long jump and hopefully follow that with a good javelin and good 800m.

"I had a good second day in Barcelona. I'm not in bad shape so I hope I can reproduce that."

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