• Athletics

Ennis wins easily but sees record attempt fall away

Jessica Ennis' record tilt effectively died at the end of the javelin © PA Photos

Enlarge

Related Links

• News: Ennis impresses in Manchester
  
• News: Even gold at London 2012 won't be enough for Ennis
  
• News: Ennis off to great start in Gotzis
  
• Profile: Jessica Ennis-Hill

Jessica Ennis slowly slipped out of the hunt for a new British record but nevertheless cruised to victory in the heptathlon at the Hypo Meeting in Austria.

After completing the 800 metres to end the event, Ennis finished with 6,790 points - just 33 behind her personal best and nearly 300 more than the target the 25-year-old had set herself after missing seven weeks of training due to an ankle injury.

She won the event by 251 points from Russia's Tatyana Chernova, with France's Antoinette Nana-Djimou another 130 points behind in third. Olympic champion Nataliya Dobrynska was a distant sixth, 458 points behind Ennis.

"I'm so glad that's over," Ennis said afterwards. "I think I'm actually in the best running shape of my life considering I missed so much.

"I think some of the technical things were off, but I'm so pleased and really surprised. I didn't for one minute think I could score that and win as well."

Nevertheless, the Sheffield-based athlete may have been disappointed after starting the day in a promising position to threaten Lewis' 6,831 point record.

Ennis finished the four events of the first day on 4,097 points - 17 more than when she won the European Championships in Spain last year, in which she finished with a personal best of 6,823 points that was just eight behind Denise Lewis' 11-year British record - after impressive displays in the 100 metres hurdles, high jump and 200 metres on Saturday.

She slipped slightly off her blistering pace on Sunday morning, however, after an unremarkable leap of 6.37 metres in the long jump. Nevertheless, it was more than good enough to keep her in the lead in Gotzis on 5,062 points, 242 ahead of Chernova and still only seven behind her Barcelona mark.

In fact Chernova won the long jump, with an impressive personal best leap of 6.82m - a distance that has been bettered by just three specialist long jumpers in 2011.

The performance left Ennis needing to throw around 46 metres in the javelin to remain on course to overhaul Lewis' record, but she could only manage 43.83 metres - still good enough for an overall lead of 180 points over Chernova - going into the final event, the 800 metres.

That left Ennis needing to run four seconds inside her personal best to break Lewis' record - an unlucky achievement but one she almost achieved after a gutsy late rally enabled her to again win her race in a personal best time of two minutes 08.46secs, nearly two seconds faster than her previous mark.

"I'm always nervous before a heptathlon and just before that 800m I thought I could either be sick or cry," she said. "I'm so relieved now it's done and I'm happy with my performance. I've done what I set out to do and I couldn't ask for much more really.

"It's a massive, massive, massive relief and my ankle feels brilliant so that's really positive."

She was delighted with her display despite a limited build-up for the event.

"I had about six weeks to prepare and that's about the bare minimum you'd need," she noted. "I didn't want to come and produce a poor score and send out the wrong message with the World Championships this year.

"It was a bit of a gamble but as I started training I was in quite good shape and running well so I knew I could get myself in reasonably good shape and the gamble paid off.

"It's given me so much confidence. Now I know that if I have an injury I can get myself into shape in six weeks and that's good for this year and next year."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.