Ennis holds off Chernova threat to clinch Gotzis heptathlon title

After seeing Chernova dominate the long jump and javelin contests, Ennis ended the Russian's hopes by convincingly beating her over 800 metres to triumph by an impressive 117 points with a score of 6,689.

But it was a nerve-wracking day for the world champion.

Ennis led the way overnight, a massive 354 points clear of the third-placed Russian, but knew Chernova would mount a powerful second-day attack.

Chernova lived up to her reputation and produced a leap of 6.52 metres in the long jump and a javelin throw of 51.35 metres, which closed the gap between the pair to 77 points before the final event, while Ennis failed to perform as well as she would have liked.

The Sheffield star leapt only 6.13m and, although her javelin distance of 43.10m was close to her season's best, the results of those two events ruled out any hopes of her breaking Denise Lewis's 10-year-old UK record of 6,831pts.

However, Ennis held the trump card as the fastest performer in the 800m – despite the rain and poor weather conditions.

The 24-year-old was content to track her rival on their two-lap race of the Mosle stadium to maintain her unbeaten record since the career-threatening injury at the Austrian track two years ago, which forced her to miss the Beijing Olympics.

"I was really nervous before the 800m so decided to stick behind her and take her at the end," said Ennis, who unleashed a terrific sprint in the final 200m to win in a time of 2mins 11:19secs with Chernova fading to fifth.

"I know she wanted to win but I knew I would have more strength at the end."

Yorkshire made a good start in the Inter Counties Track and Field Championships at Bedford yesterday. Wakefield's Zara Hohn won the 100 hurdles in 13.47 and Leeds City's Matt Hudson made it a double when he won the men's 110m hurdles in 13.72.

Leeds Metropolitan University student Hannah Evenden, who comes from Streethouse, threw a personal best of 52.19 to win the hammer whilst another Metropolitan student Rinantas Martisauskas won the men's shot, also with a personal best of 18.41.

On a day when performances were affected by strong winds, there was a fine performance from Luke Cutts (Dearnside) to win the pole vault with a height of 5.45, a championship record.

Louise Bloor (Trafford) was third in the long jump (5.86)

Rotherham's Alex Kimomya was in sparkling form at the Northern Under-17 and Under-15 championships at Leigh. In the Under-15 age group he retained both his 100 and 200 titles. There was also a double for Abbie Carter (City of Hull) in the Under-17 women's section, winning the discus (37.05) and hammer (52.20)