Defeated Ennis can learn to turn silver into gold

Jessica Ennis’s reign as world champion is over. Here, Mick Hill analyses her javelin technique and Toni Minichiello points to a learning experience. Nick Westby reports.

If we have learned anything about Jessica Ennis over the last three years it is that she responds to adversity better than any other athlete.

In 2008 she was hearbroken when a foot injury denied her the chance to compete at the Beijing Olympics.

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Her response was to sweep all before her in the next two years, winning the world title in Berlin in 2009 and the European crown in Barcelona 12 months later.

Yesterday in Daegu, adversity struck again, but this time it was a combination of her own doing and the sheer excellence of the opposition, as Russia’s Tatyana Chernova denied her a successful defence of her world title.

Silver to many is a fine result, but to a natural winner like Ennis it represents defeat.

But do not be surprised if she turns this experience to her advantage in 12 months, when the more high-profile matter of the Olympic title – the honour on which athletes are judged throughout history – is on the line.

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Defeat was always going to happen at some stage, especially in an event as demanding as the heptathlon, so better now than next August.

Already her thoughts will be moving on from Daegu to London.

The pain of silver will take a while to recede, and rightly so, but used as a motivating factor to get even better it will prove a useful tool.

Ennis is level-headed enough to do that, and this reality check might even reduce the expectation on her shoulders going into her home, and maiden, Olympics.

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She is fortunate also to have loyal and seasoned aides in head coach Toni Minichiello and her javelin guru Mick Hill.

Ennis spends five days a week with Minichiello at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield, working on her running, long jump, shot put and high jump.

Although her hurdling and high jump were scratchy in South Korea, it was the javelin which let her down.

Ennis slipped on a patch of repaired track and managed only 39.95m, which was fully 13m shy of what Chernova threw, and six metres adrift of her season’s best.

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It means some intense work is needed at Leeds Metropolitan University with Hill, a World Championship bronze medallist in 1993.

“I’m extremely disappointed for her,” Hill, who was in the training camp with Ennis until the start of the championships, told the Yorkshire Post.

“She’d thrown well at the camp and all season she’d been between 42.90m and 44m. Anything around 45m (yesterday) – which she was capable of – would have put her in a good position. This is the worst she has thrown since about 2007 and we have got to look at it.”

Hill has two sessions a week with Ennis at Leeds Met and believes her undoing yesterday was a combination of minor technical flaws and the circumstances.

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He said: “Jess was in the weaker pool of athletes, the stadium was almost empty and there was a number of reasons why it didn’t happen for her.

“Chernova was putting pressure on and sometimes the harder you try it doesn’t necessarily work out.

“I was only watching the television pictures like everybody else and there didn’t look anything particularly wrong with her technique.

“If anything it looked like she was trying to force it because when you could see her feet they were too close to the line which suggests she was running too fast.

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“Javelin is a very technical event and when you start forcing it, it goes awry. It’s a big shock because it hasn’t happened before.

“But Jess is a fantastic competitor. She still showed that in Daegu by bouncing back from the hurdles and the high jump with personal bests in the shot put and long jump.

“Jess is a fighter and come London she will be 100 per cent ready.”

Head coach Minichiello said: “When you’re world No 1 you’d hope that you’d retain that kind of performance at championships like this, but it is still a good learning opportunity.

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“There have been some positives to come out. The long jump looks really good and I think there’s a bit more to come. The shot put I wasn’t really expecting so that’s a pleasant surprise.

“Her flat speed I am happy with and the 800m shows she can run. In reality she beat Chernova in five events, but just got heavily beaten in the javelin. That’s the difference.

“In the warm-up for the javelin she threw one about 45m and you’re like, ‘It was fine a minute ago’.

“She slipped a little bit on the runway on the first run – that maybe upset her for the second one – then the third one she really went for it but just didn’t time it right and missed it completely.

“But I don’t think it will take her a long time to get over this.

“I think she proved she’s over it by going out hard in the 800m. I think she’s over it now.”

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