Sheffield's Jess Ennis wins Olympic Gold!

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Sheffield's golden girl, Jessica Ennis, has begun her heptathlon event today in fine style. She's broken the world record for a heptathlete in the 100m sprint with 12.58 seconds, annihilating her previous personal best and opening her account with a whopping 1,195 points.

 

Tatiana Chernova, her likely chief rival for the gold medal, was almost a full second behind and already has a mountain to climb after only one event.

[mrsimon 10]

Brilliant start , hopefully can carry it on and win Gold!

[Andy 10]

Good luck Jess!

[medusa 16]

Not only was the race a world record for the heptathlon hurdles, it was also a British record for the event as run by specialist hurdlers

 

Go Jessica

[tonyem 10]

All the best to Jessica Ennis. Sheffield is proud of you.

[NorthernStar 11]

Go Jess, Sheffield's fittest bird making us proud:clap::clap:

[janie48 95]

Sheffied has a reason to be proud of all Jess has acchieved,may her success continue.

Good luck Jessica.

[Cat lover m 10]

The 2008 Olympic champion woman's hurdler(specialist)won the gold in the same time as Jessica's time today

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On to the second event, the high jump. Jess cleared 1.86m but failed at 1.89 - which will disappoint her as she normally does better. On the other hand, both of her main rivals failed to clear even 1.86, so she's pulled out a bigger lead on those two.

 

Currently lying second is Hyleas Fountain, only 25 points behind, and third is Britain's own Katarina Johnson-Thompson, only 19 years old.

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A good second shot put, which is one of her weaker events; good news for her as far as Dobrynska goes, though, who fouled her first two attempts and had to stay well within herself for the third, to ensure any points at all.

 

Ennis will still lose points to Dobrynska and Chernova here, but not as many as she would normally expect to; so that will be three positive results out of three.

[Lockjaw 11]

10 posts without a negative comment! Is this a Sheffield record?

 

On topic: I was at a school sports day at the EIS recently (yes, they do still occur and yes, there were medals for the winners & runners up and nothing for anyone else) and Jess was training (long jump) at the side of the track. The total focus she exhibited was like nothing I've ever seen.

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Lithuanian athlete Austra Skujyte has absolutely smashed the world's best shot put by any heptathlete, reaching 17.31 metres - almost seven feet better than the next best by Dobrynska at 15.05, with Jess 14.28.

 

This puts Skujyte in front after three events; she won't be expected to stay there since her best result, compared to Jess's best, over 200m would see her lose 200 and something points.

 

Current standings after three events:

Skujyte, 3126 points.

Ennis, 3062

Schwarzkopf, 2947

Savitskaya, 2930

Dobrynska, 2920

 

...Chernova, strongly fancied, currently in 13th place with 2836. Our young newcomer Johnson-Thompson dropped to 20th with 2762, after a fairly poor shotput - which is to be expected, and understandable, from a 19 year old who is doing very well to be here at all.