Kelly Sotherton's hopes of Olympic glory suffered a further blow today as she dropped out of the medal positions after the fifth event of the Olympic heptathlon in Beijing.

Sotherton began the day in bronze medal position but could only record a best jump of 6.33 metres in the long jump, traditionally one of her strongest events.

That left the 31-year-old, bronze medallist in Athens in 2004, 154 points off the lead held by Ukraine's Nataliia Dobrynska, who recorded the best jump of the competition with a personal best of 6.63m.

Overnight leader Hyleas Fountain was in danger of crashing out of contention when she failed to record a distance with her first two jumps, but the American managed 6.38m in the final round to lie second.

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Ukraine's Lyudmila Blonska was in the same position but jumped 6.48m in the final round to lie third despite taking off well behind the board.

Sotherton jumped 6.21m in the first round but was not impressed and went straight over to coach Aston Moore in the stands to find out what was going wrong.

Her second round of 6.33m was a slight improvement but was still well down on her personal best of 6.68m, and she was unable to improve with her third and final jump of 6.29m, which will be a major disappointment ahead of the next discipline, the problematical javelin this evening.

Sotherton has often struggled to record a respectable distance in the javelin but will need to pull out a big throw to give herself a chance ahead of the final event, the 800m.