Jessica Ennis breaks heptathlon hurdles record

Ennis, 26 ended the day with a personal best of 22.83 in the 200m – the joint fastest time. This put her on 4158 points after four events.

She got off to a strong started completing the 100m hurdles in 12.54 seconds. Her time was 0.08 of a second faster than the previous world best, 12.62 seconds.

In the high jump Ennis cleared 1.86m, whilst her team mate, 19-year-old Katerina Johnson Thompson, jumped 1.89m.

But she slipped to second following the shot put after a strong performance by the Athens silver medalist Austra Skujyte briefly put the Lithuanian athlete into the lead.

The first day’s events are Ennis’s strongest, particularly the high jump, for which she holds the British record, and the 100m hurdles.

Her weakest event, the javelin, takes place on Saturday – as well as the long jump and the 800m.

Apart from the heptathlon, Ennis will also be competing in the 100m hurdles, which starts on Monday.

Strong medal hope

Sheffield-born Ennis missed out on the Beijing Games after suffering a potentially career-ending broken foot. But has earned her place as one of the UK’s strongest medal hopes with a number of gold medal positions in recent years.

“As athletes, we just want to go out there to perform as best we can,” she said on the eve of her quest for the Olympic heptathlon title.

“It’s all about the medal, and that’s our reward. Any extra thing is a bonus. But it’s not about that. I think it would take away from how special it is to actually make the team and win a medal.”

But her comments on the so-called “cash for dash” Twitter campaign mounted by US athletes reveal how top sports stars are inevitably drawn into rows over money.

The campaign was launched with the intention of securing payment for athletes at the Olympics and outlawing Rule 40 of the International Olympic Committee, which restricts what competitors are able to promote during the Games.

Formidable world beater

Since her roaring trip to the heights of British athletic success, Ennis have proved herself to be a formidable world-beater and poster girl for the 2012 Olympics.

Coming in at 5ft 4in, Ennis – better known as “tadpole” – has been bearing the weight of expectation remarkably well, showing little else other than dedicated focus and determination to win.

Neither of her parents was particularly athletic. Her father is a self-employed painter and decorator, originally from Jamaica, and her mother is a social worker who was born in Derbyshire.

They introduced her to athletics at the Start:Track event at Sheffield’s Don Valley Stadium during the school holidays in 1996. Ennis would later joke that her parents took her there because they “wanted me out of the house”.

Strong medal hope

Sheffield-born Ennis missed out on the Beijing Games after suffering a potentially career-ending broken foot. But has earned her place as one of the UK’s strongest medal hopes with a number of gold medal positions in recent years.

“As athletes, we just want to go out there to perform as best we can,” she said on the eve of her quest for the Olympic heptathlon title.

“It’s all about the medal, and that’s our reward. Any extra thing is a bonus. But it’s not about that. I think it would take away from how special it is to actually make the team and win a medal.”

But her comments on the so-called “cash for dash” Twitter campaign mounted by US athletes reveal how top sports stars are inevitably drawn into rows over money.

The campaign was launched with the intention of securing payment for athletes at the Olympics and outlawing Rule 40 of the International Olympic Committee, which restricts what competitors are able to promote during the Games.

Formidable world beater

Since her roaring trip to the heights of British athletic success, Ennis have proved herself to be a formidable world-beater and poster girl for the 2012 Olympics.

Coming in at 5ft 4in, Ennis – better known as “tadpole” – has been bearing the weight of expectation remarkably well, showing little else other than dedicated focus and determination to win.

Neither of her parents was particularly athletic. Her father is a self-employed painter and decorator, originally from Jamaica, and her mother is a social worker who was born in Derbyshire.

They introduced her to athletics at the Start:Track event at Sheffield’s Don Valley Stadium during the school holidays in 1996. Ennis would later joke that her parents took her there because they “wanted me out of the house”.

// Popup window code
function newPopup(url) {
popupWindow = window.open(
url,’popUpWindow’,’height=680,width=1200,left=10,top=10,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes,toolbar=yes,menubar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=yes’)
}

Elsewhere in athletics

The first gold medals in athletics were up for grabs in two events today: the men’s shot put and the women’s 10,000m.

Competing for Team GB in the shot put is Carl “Blackpool Tower” Myerscough. The Blackpudlian was given his nickname due to his size – 6ft 10in tall and weighing in at 26 stones. Myerscough did not achieve qualification for the final.

Julia Bleasdale and Joanne Pavey will compete in the women’s 10,000m. The race takes place at 9:25pm.

The other athletics events taking place, which are preliminary round, qualifying rounds or first rounds, are: women’s triple jump (10.25am), women’s 100m (10.40am), men’s 400m hurdles (11.15am), man’s hammer throw (11.20am), women’s 400m (12pm), men’s 3,000m steeplechase (1pm), women’s discus (7.10pm), men’s long jump (7.50pm) and men 1,500m (8.05pm).