Athletics: Jessica Ennis-Hill to receive gold medal SIX years late in London Olympic Stadium

Jessica Ennis-Hill will receive her gold medal from the 2011 World Championships at the London Stadium on Sunday, August 6, organisers have announced.
Jessica Ennis-Hill won the World Championships in 2015 in BeijingJessica Ennis-Hill won the World Championships in 2015 in Beijing
Jessica Ennis-Hill won the World Championships in 2015 in Beijing

Ennis-Hill will receive her third world heptathlon gold, six years late, in a special ceremony ahead of the evening session of day three of the 2017 World Championships in the capital.

The Briton was upgraded from silver to gold from the event in Daegu when Tatyana Chernova was found guilty of blood doping. And the result was finally rubber-stamped last week when the Russian's appeal against her ban was dismissed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

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Ennis-Hill, who retired after winning silver at last year's Olympics in Rio, will receive her gold medal in the stadium in which she won the Olympic title so memorably five years earlier. The ceremony will be accompanied by the national anthem.

The 31-year-old, who will fittingly receive her medal on the same evening the heptathlon competition concludes, is one of two British individual athletes and three relay teams who will be presented in London next month with World Championship medals denied them at the time by drug cheats.

Jo Pavey will receive her 10,000m bronze from the 2007 Worlds ahead of the evening session on August 5.

Christine Ohuruogu, who like Ennis-Hill and Pavey will not compete at London 2017, will receive three medals in one evening, as part of three different British 4x400m relay teams.

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The quartets from Berlin in 2009, also featuring Lee McConnell, Vicki Barr, Nicole Sanders, and Daegu in 2011, which also included McConnell, Sanders and Perri Shakes Drayton, will receive their bronze medals on August 4, ahead of the opening session of the championships.

Ohuruogu and team-mates Eilidh Doyle, the British team captain at London 2017, Shana Cox and Margaret Adeoye will also receive silver medals from Moscow 2013.

The United States women's 4x400m team from Moscow will receive their gold medals on the opening night in London as well.

Lord Coe, the president of world athletics' governing body the IAAF, said: "I'm delighted that the athletes are properly honoured for their achievements and what better way than in front of passionate athletics fans at a major championship.

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"For those receiving gold medals their moment in London will be all the more special as they will hear their national anthem played. Whatever their nationality clean athletes worldwide will celebrate with them."

In total, 11 individual athletes and five teams from across 11 events at four previous World Championships have accepted invitations to receive their reallocated medals in London.

For those athletes who will not be presented with their reallocated medals in London, the IAAF said it was "in contact with their national federations" to find other times to award them.

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