Striking and powerful, Sheffield heptathlete Jessica Ennis was the new face of British athletics, just the kind of prototype the sport needed to encourage youngsters into running spikes ahead of London 2012.

She added substance to her style with a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in Australia.

Another strong showing at Osaka, Japan last year, when she gave the World Championship medallists a run for their money with a personal-best points haul, demonstrated her ability to perform at the highest level.

Beijing this summer would see Ennis reach an early peak.

But on Monday, her world came crashing down around her.

Ennis has been forced to withdraw from the Games because of a hairline fracture of her right ankle, an injury she has been carrying for some time, but was wilfully trying to ignore.

At an athletics meeting in Austria at the weekend she could ignore it no longer.

CT and MRI scans revealed three fractures to the joint.

It is a devastating blow for one of Britain's genuine medal hopes, and leaves Team GB staring at another frustrating Olympics in the stand-out track and field disciplines.

Ennis's great heptathlete rival and friend Kelly Sotherton is still not fully recovered herself from a kidney complaint, while sprinter Mark Lewis-Francis is out with an Achilles injury.

Marathon hope Paula Radcliffe faces a race against time to be fit with a thigh injury threatening to deepen her Olympic misery. And Nicola Sanders, the World Championship silver medallist last summer, is troubled by a knee complaint.

But for Ennis the Beijing race is already run.

"I'm obviously upset with the results and I'm gutted to be missing out on my first Olympics, but injury is part of life as a heptathlete," she said this week. "I am determined to make a full and speedy recovery from this and enjoy a long athletics career."

At 22 she has time on her side.

London 2012 has always been the main target, by which time she will be 26, experienced and at the peak of her powers.

Field athletes have a longer life expectancy than their track counterparts.

Of the five previous Olympic female heptathlete gold medallists, only reigning champion Carolina Kluft was younger than Ennis when she won her title.

And Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who won back-to-back gold medals in Seoul and Barcelona was 26 and 30 – the same ages Ennis will be in four and eight years time.

It will not be much in the way of crumbs of comfort for Ennis, who has spent the past 48 hours away from the public spotlight, letting other people do the talking for her as she comes to terms with the injury and its repercussions.

Brendan Foster, a bronze medallist in Montreal in the 10,000m, believes Ennis should get away from it all and come back when Beijing is in the past.

"I think it's a real shame," he said. "But she could easily be able to compete in 2012 and 2016.

"At the end of the day she's got to go through this heartache. She had more than a realistic shot of a medal, but she'll have other chances.

There's no words can satisfy her right now because she's been dreaming of the Olympics for a long time.

"My advice to her now would be to go on holiday. Get away from the Beijing Games on television and start thinking about the World Championships next year and beyond."

Mike Cordon, chairman of the City of Sheffield Athletics Club of which Ennis is a member, knows she is the type of character who will bounce back.

"She's an athlete who gives 100 per cent," he said.

"Jess is someone who is prepared to go out and compete in the Northern League Division Three, throwing the javelin against club athletes, and still have a smile on her face, because she loves the sport.

"I feel dreadfully sorry for her, but she'll feel a thousand times worse. I think she'll come back and do great things."