After World Youth and Junior titles, Chernova's rise continues Giving thanks, Montsho hopes her medal will inspire
With hat trick of gold medals, Adams joins legendary shot putters Kumbernuss and GünthörIn Tuesday evening’s World Championship action from the Daegu Stadium, there was a silver medal for Jessica Ennis (coach: Toni Minichiello) in the heptathlon, whilst Dai Greene (Malcolm Arnold) was a class apart in qualifying for the men’s 400m hurdles final.
Ennis, in securing the Aviva Great Britain and Northern Ireland team’s third medal of the championship may not have had an achievable task in the women’s 800m in order to retain her World title, but in throwing down the gauntlet to the rest of the field and running a lifetime best of 2:07.81, she ascertained that she is still one of heptathlon’s top two lap performers and a force to be reckoned with.
Ennis, who took to the front from the gun did not have the advantage over Chernova at the end to make headway into the Russian’s points advantage, but will surely take an insight into her 2012 preparations that the heptathlon gold in London is very much for the taking.
As it was her run earned her 997 points and was her second PB of day two and her third of the competition, but her overall total of 6751 was 129 points behind Chernova, who set a world leading 6880 to win.
Reacting afterwards, Ennis was determined to accept it just hadn’t been her day:
“I don’t want to walk away and analyse too much, I don’t think it’s something I’m going to dwell on, it was just one of those days where it didn’t come together, it wasn’t right.
“My javelin was so poor and Chernova’s was so good it was enough to take that gold medal. It was a brilliant score by Chernova, but I performed well, I had some PBs so I can take positives away from that and work on the javelin.
“I knew the gap was so big, but I wanted to go out on the 800m and leave everything on the track and run as fast as I can and walk away from it knowing I’d given it everything.”
Looking for a PB points performance, team mate Louise Hazel (Aston Moore) went in the penultimate 800m heat and worked hard to stay in contact with the main group. Powering down the home straight to eek out every last second she could, the 2:15.44 clocking and 887 points meant the Birchfield Harrier finished her World Championships with a points tally of 6149 for 15th position, just shy of her existing 6166 lifetime best.
“I really went for it in the 800 as I wanted to secure a personal best, but I was just outside,” she said.
“6149 points you can’t say fairer than that, I put in my best. I want to congratulate Jessica on her silver medal, she really earned it tonight and made the Russian girl work. I also want to say a massive thank you to all the support staff who have worked their socks off for us. I’m just looking forward to next year now, me and my coach have already identified that we need to step up strength-wise so we know what we’re doing.”
