Ennis's confidence bolstered by repeat hurdles win in Scotland

Jessica Ennis believes a second impressive 60m hurdles victory over double world indoor champion Lolo Jones gives her good reason to be positive for the coming season.

The world and European heptathlon champion, from Sheffield, clocked a season's best 7.97seconds in Saturday Aviva International Match at Glasgow's Kelvin Hall to beat her American rival, who trailed home fourth after clattering the third hurdle.

The time was just two hundredths of a second off the British record Ennis set at last year's event, when she also claimed the scalp of Jones.

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The 25-year-old also edged out one of Britain's latest recruits from overseas, Tiffany Ofili, who came home second in 8.04secs.

Ofili, who hails from Michigan but qualifies for Britain through her mother, has a quicker personal best than Ennis both indoors and out but could not live with her on this occasion.

With the European Indoor Championships in Paris on the horizon in March and the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, coming up in August, the performance bodes well.

"I always come into it just wanting a good quality race and to push my time," said Ennis.

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"I thought it was a bit flukey last year. But it's given me loads of confidence, coming here and running that sort of time and beating people of that calibre.

"I've done three races now (this season) and each time I've got quicker and I think if I'm running under eight (seconds) that's really good and hopefully I can produce that in the summer."

The Sheffield athlete admits, though, her long jump needs work, despite being satisfied with a leap of 6.38m with her last attempt to place third.

The event is one she has struggled with since the serious ankle injury which ruled her out of the 2008 Beijing Olympics forced her to change take-off legs.

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"It's just one of those events, like with the shot putt, that's taken so long and then eventually kind of clicks," she said.

"Although I was pleased with jumping 6.51m last year (her outdoor personal best), I still feel there's so much more to come.

"I'll just go away and put a bit more time into it and hope that it improves."

Andy Turner, the European and Commonwealth champion, was unable to make it a British double in the hurdles as he finished second behind muscular Floridian David Oliver.

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Turner clocked 7.66secs with Oliver, who was unbeaten outdoors last summer and ran two of the six fastest times for the 110m hurdles, winning in 7.51.

It was both athletes' fastest season-opening times, and Oliver feels Turner, who battled back from injury and loss of funding to win two gold medals last year, is starting to fulfil his potential.

"We trained together several years ago and he used to beat me real bad when we were doing sprint workouts," he said.

"I know he's a good hurdler and it was good to see him win those medals last year. I was definitely checking to see how he was doing and I'm just glad he's seeing some success because he works really, really hard. He deserves it."

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Jenny Meadows, the 800m runner, who is looking to go one better in Paris than the world indoor silver medal she won in Doha last March, got her season off to a flyer.

Meadows, who cruised to a convincing victory in Glasgow in 2:01.17, said: "I felt really good, it's by far the quickest I've ever opened up with on this track.

"I am (optimistic about Paris). Last year I was in very good shape indoors and I did think I'd given myself a tough task in 2011 to try to replicate what I did in 2010, but all the signs in training show I'm actually quite far ahead of where I was this time last year."

Great Britain's David Weir and Shelly Woods pulled out of their respective marathon events on the final day of the IPC Athletics World Championships in Christchurch, New Zealand, due to safety fears.

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The lack of road closures for the long-distance event led Weir and Woods to consider the event too much of a risk.

"I just thought it was ludicrous. I didn't want to risk getting injured or getting run over," said Weir.

UK Athletics head coach Peter Eriksson criticised the organisers for failing to observe international rules governing marathons.

The team's final medal total therefore stands at 38 – 12 gold, nine silver and 17 bronze – leaving them third in the table behind China, with 21 golds and 58 medals in total, and Russia, whose 35-medal tally crucially included 18 golds.

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Dan Greaves's F44 discus world record of 58.98m represented a high point, while the team also racked up five European records and 19 personal bests.

Eriksson said: "We've had hugely successful championships.

"We won 27 medals in the last edition of the championships in 2006 with nine gold, nine silver and nine bronze, but the most important benchmark for us coming into this was our 18th-placed team finish in the Beijing Paralympic Games two years ago.

"We came out here knowing that a top-10 finish in the medal table would be a step in the right direction and having finished third on the medal table behind two of the world's leading nations in Paralympic track and field, I'm absolutely delighted."

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