Jessica Ennis does not fear failure. She does not fear the drug-addled cheats
with their twisted ambition or the muscle-bound Ukrainians with their
threatening talent. She does not fear anyone. The only thing that blights
her optimism is the fear that she may not make it to the start line of the
London Olympics in 2012.
“If I could trade my world title for a guarantee that I’ll be fit and healthy
in three years’ time then I would do it,” the heptathlete said. “I’m making
up for lost time. I’m on a massive high and I don’t want to come down.”
Today marks 1,000 days until London gets its Games and the bickering about the
£9 billion bill is suspended by the love of sport.
For Ennis the countdown began last year when a triple stress fracture of a her
right foot ruled her out of the Beijing Olympics. It was her first serious
injury since she was 13, when she went to a fancy dress party dressed as
Pippi Longstocking and a glass panel collapsed on her. Her arm is still
scarred, but the mental shards of missing the Olympics cut slashing wounds.
If she could have a superpower she says it would be an ability “to repair
myself”. There was a fear that her career might be over at 22. Instead,
Ennis slaved away in the gymnasium in her native Sheffield and re-emerged in
May, by the edge of Lake Garda in Italy, to achieve a personal best. From
there she went to the World Championships in Berlin where she demolished the
opposition, raised her points tally to 6,731, second only to Denise Lewis in
the all-time British list, and installed herself as the face of 2012.
With the 1,000-day marker approaching it was fitting that she should make her
first visit to the 2012 site this week. She posed on the startline of the
empty stage and admitted: “It sends shivers down my spine.” Surprised by how
close the fans will be, she envisaged the intimacy of a cavernous arena and,
at 5ft 4in tall, looked very small.
The looks are deceptive. She is a wolf in designer wool, a belligerent desire
masked by natural grace and a petite frame that jars against the norm. In
recent weeks she has fraternised with popstars at the Mobo awards and been
pictured with Cindy Crawford, the supermodel, but the fripperies of fame do
not sit easily with her. “I’m not comfortable talking about my looks
really,” she said. “It’s superficial stuff. I don’t look in the mirror and
think, ‘Oh God, yeah’.”
There is more to Ennis than meets the eye, which is why her compatriot and
rival, Kelly Sotherton, may now regret giving her the moniker “Tadpole”.
Ennis said: “We were in the athletes’ village at the Commonwealth Games [in
2006] and she came up with it one day. Then she came back from a press
conference and said she’d told all the media. It did annoy me. I don’t think
there’s any need for that. I definitely won’t be saying anything about
Katarina.”
Katarina is Katarina Thompson, a 16-year-old heptathlete who was a ballet
dancer before becoming the world youth champion this summer. “Everything is
geared towards 2012 and nobody is thinking about afterwards,” Ennis said.
“When Rio got the Games for 2016 my boyfriend was saying, ‘Yes!’ I said I
might not be there. If I achieve everything I want in 2012 and am satisfied
that might be it. And Katarina will be dominating by Rio and I don’t want to
turn up with a zimmer frame. This event is cruel and hurts.”
Toni Minichiello, her coach, has been helping Thompson this year, but the bond
with Ennis is one of the strongest in sport. It is 13 years old and has
reaped Commonwealth bronze and world gold, but can be volatile. “We have
huge arguments when I don’t want to see him for a week,” Ennis said. “I’ve
stormed out of sessions, a bit tearful, but I never go home. I can’t because
I need to train. I just can’t leave. It’s always petty things, but he can be
patronising and still speak to me like I’m 11.
“When I won the gold I went through the mixed zone and up to the combined
events room. He was there. It had been over a decade in the making. There
was an awkward hug, more a pat on the back. He’s not demonstrative and it’s
a father-daughter relationship. He’s very protective.”
Her real father is Vinnie who came to Britain from Jamaica as a 13-year-old
and now works as a decorator. Last year Ennis’s family lost £18,000 when
they had to cancel their pre-booked trips to Beijing. It was a serious
financial blow and means she can understand why some people regard the
Olympics as an obscene folly. “With the recession it’s hard not to think
about the money, but when it comes around and people can see what’s been
built and taste the excitement, I think they will forget about the cost and
just enjoy it,” she said. “These are hard times, but it won’t be like this
for ever.”
Money has never driven Ennis, herself, and it was only last week when she
realised she was still to receive her $60,000 winners’ cheque from Berlin.
“The money is nice but irrelevant,” she said. The pride of Sheffield
dismisses the argument that the Olympics are for London only. “Every city
has its project and wants to get involved,” she said. “Then there will be
holding camps around the country. I see a lot of kids and they’re so into
it. The Olympics goes beyond two weeks one summer.”
The next generation concerns Ennis as he she feels Britain’s talent is often
killed in the cradle. “Parents are more a problem than the kids,” she said.
“My dad loves what I do and always brought me down to the track, but he’s
always been very conscious not to suffocate me. I’ve seen parents screaming
at their kids, ‘You should have done this.’ They’re way too harsh. It takes
the fun away. I’d have quit sport if I’d had parents like that.”
Another persuasive argument used against athletics is the drug problem. Ennis,
herself, has been a victim, finishing fourth at the 2007 World
Championships, while Lyudmila Blonska, the Ukranian, took the silver.
Blonska was subsequently banned for life for a second drug offence but kept
her medal. Ennis grimaces when reminded that there are also 29 Russians
serving IAAF doping bans at present, a figure that pales alongside
historical analysis of state-sponsored regimes, but which strains the
boundaries of credulity.
“It is hard to change a perception once it’s there,” Ennis said of the sport’s
stigma. “Everyone’s suspicious and it’s horrible when you’re in a sport and
working so hard to achieve things, knowing people might be doubting you. I
think it’s changing a bit with the new drug systems, but it will go on for
ever. I can’t think about Blonska, but the real pain of doping is the impact
it has on the innocent.”
She says that in the post-Balco, post-Chambers age, any British athlete found
doping would be ostracised. “We have a nice, young team built on trust and
respect,” she said. “If it happened now the team would be very disappointed
but also shocked. I think when people speculate about British athletes being
on drugs it’s really damaging. It’s an opinion that’s taken as fact.”
It is only 15 months since her lowest ebb. She was told that her Beijing dream
was over when she received her scan results at the Olympic Medical
Institute. Paul Dykstra, the UK Athletics doctor, took her out for a meal
that night. “I don’t know how he coped,” she said. “I was crying all the
time and my face was puffy and red. I don’t know what the waiter must have
thought.”
Now she is the world champion and wants to add the European title in Barcelona
next July, but she will almost certainly skip the Commonwealth Games next
October. In the shorter term Jenson Button can expect a mixed reception if
he denies the home-town heroine the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award
at the Sheffield Arena in December.
There are rivalries in the making with Nataliya Dobrynska, the Olympic champion
from Ukraine, and Hyleas Fountain, the American who missed the World
Championships. Ennis, though, is almost fearless. “It definitely helps you
to experience a crushing low,” she said. “You appreciate things. You gain a
sense of perspective. My goal is to make all the major championships and win
medals, but the main thing is to be fit at the end of another 1,000 days.”
Still room for improvement
If Jessica Ennis needs any extra motivation as she plots her course through
the next 1,000 days then the memory of the 800 metres at the World
Championships will provide it.
“The gold was mine to throw away but I started to panic,” she admitted. “I
began to think, ‘Am I going to blow up and die?’ ”
Ennis was in a commanding position going into the last of the seven events in
Berlin’s Olympic Stadium in August. She had a pep talk with her coach, Toni
Minichiello, who told her how many seconds Nataliya Dobrynska, the Olympic
champion, needed to claw back. Fearing being tripped and with adrenalin
coursing through her, Ennis set off at a suicidal pace. The Ukrainian did,
indeed, pass her, but Ennis responded to win the race and gold.
“When they came back at me I thought, ‘damn!’, but I wanted to cross that line
first, even though I didn’t need to win the race,” she said. “Why? You train
all year for one moment so what’s the point in easing down? You give it
everything, leave it all on the track.”
It was a crippling two days in Berlin and Ennis knows she needs to get better
before 2012. Hyleas Fountain, the Olympic silver medal-winner, was not in
Berlin. Dobrynska was out of sorts and will return. Tatyana Chernova, of
Russia, remains a largely untapped talent.
“I need to improve my second day,” Ennis said. “Definitely the long jump. I
got to grips with it a bit in Berlin, but I was really fatigued after the
first day. I was just not getting the return off my legs. I think I can make
a big improvement there.”
Minichiello has rebuilt her long jump, changing her take-off foot to protect
the injury. He also says she suffered from using her take-off foot as she
would in the high jump, with the difference in technique meaning it acted as
a brake.
“I can get better at the javelin, too, and think I can bring my 800 metres
time down to 2min 07sec [her best is 2min 09.88sec],” Ennis said. “I didn’t
run tactically right in Berlin, but that feeling of panic can benefit me.
It’s about getting the timing right.”
Shaping up with the best
World record Jackie Joyner-Kersee (USA) 7,291 points (set at 1988
Olympics, Seoul)
British record Denise Lewis 6,831 (set in 2000, Talence, France)
Jessica Ennis 6,731 (set at 2009 World Championships, Berlin)
By event using above scores:
Day 1
100m hurdles Joyner-Kersee 12.69sec, Ennis 12.93, Lewis 13.13
High jump Ennis 1.92 metres, Joyner-Kersee 1.86, Lewis 1.84
Shot put Joyner-Kersee 15.80 metres, Lewis 15.07, Ennis 14.14
200m Joyner-Kersee 22.56sec, Ennis 23.25, Lewis 24.01
Day 2
Long jump Joyner-Kersee 7.27 metres, Lewis 6.69, Ennis 6.29
Javelin Joyner-Kersee 45.66 metres, Lewis 44.08, Ennis 43.54
800m Joyner-Kersee 2min 8.51sec, Lewis 2.10.46, Ennis 2.12.22
• More than 50 medal-winners including Matthew Pinsent (rowing), Jayne
Torvill (figure skating), Denise Lewis (athletics) and Sarah Webb (sailing)
attended the British Olympic Association’s ninth annual Gold Ball at The
Natural History Museum.
They were joined by the brightest young talent aiming for Olympic success in
next year’s winter games in Vancouver and for London 2012, which will start
in 1,000 days’ time. Among them were Fran Halsall, the swimmer, and
Jan-Michael Kachalski, the downhill skier.
The event is expected to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds to help Team
GB. Atos Origin, the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the
Olympic Games and longstanding sponsor of the BOA and Team GB, was the
presenting partner of the event for the sixth year running.
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