Growing maturity can help golden girl to glory

Jessica Ennis, of Sheffield, has titles to defend and injuries to overcome in the coming months but her status as world and European heptathlon champion means she is never far from the thoughts of those forecasting who will deliver gold medals at a home Olympics.

“London 2012 is always there at the back of your head and I try to stop it popping in my mind all the time,” said the 25-year-old, who was forced to withdraw from the recent European Indoor Championships in Paris with a nagging calf injury.

“I don’t go to bed dreaming about it. It’s obviously getting closer and closer but it still seems a little distant to me. I’ve got this year’s World Championships to focus on and retaining that title – and there are other ambitions and targets that I want to achieve before 2012.

“Maybe when those championships are over I will start to feel different. I know the expectation will be massive but I believe I have the ability to control that and still perform.

“I felt pressure before the European Championships because everyone was expecting me to win gold. It was nice to know that I could deal with it and, hopefully, that’s a valuable experience.

“Everybody should enjoy competing at a home Olympics; you won’t perform at your best if you are dreading it.”

Ennis sustained a calf injury in front of her home fans in Sheffield last month, prompting the decision to opt out of a bid for pentathlon gold in the French capital as a precautionary measure.

With a defence of her world title in Daegu, South Korea, in August, and a career-defining stab at heptathlon gold in next summer’s London Olympics the priorities, the decision is an illustration to her head coach Toni Minichiello and javelin trainer Mick Hill of Ennis’s growing maturity.

“It’s very disappointing considering how good a shape she was in but, hopefully, it’s not a serious long-term problem and we’re on top of it,” said Minichiello, who coaches Ennis at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield.

“She was hitting the same levels as she had been last year in the run-up to Doha (where she won the world indoor title).

“She could have competed in Paris but it’s better to take two or three weeks off now than require three months to recover from Paris and be chasing our tails going into the World Championships.

“Jess is currently in rehab and that is going well.”

For Hill, twice an Olympic javelin competitor and a world silver medallist who conducts Ennis’s specialist training at Leeds Metropolitan University, her decision to pull out suggest the ghosts of Gotzis have been exorcised.

It was in the Austrian town six weeks before the Bejing Games that Ennis’s Olympic dream three years ago was crushed by a foot fracture, and Hill said: “Jess had never been injured before so when the warning signs came before the injury in Beijing, she didn’t notice them.

“She did this time; when she first felt it, she knew. That’s the sign of a mature athlete.

“You always fear the worst because if she had competed in Paris and done more damage, then that can knock you back a long way. And you don’t want to risk getting a knock or not performing at the top of your game because that gives your competition a bit of an edge.

“So it’s a good decision by her, her team and the medical staff. She has a very wise head on her shoulders.

“I’ve seen her since the injury; she’s in high spirits, she’s dealt with it and is already refocusing, which is something she’s very good at.”

Ennis’s withdrawal from Paris ended her participation in the indoor season, leaving Minichiello to plan her outdoor campaign.

Minichiello explained: “We’ll hopefully follow the same pattern as last year, starting with Gotzis in May.

“It’s my intention that she’ll compete less this summer, given the length of the season. But I’ve said that before and ended up filling her schedule.”

Ennis recently learned that the London programme – which opens 500 days from today on July 27, 2012 – would not permit her to compete for the 110m hurdles title as well as heptathlon gold.

The Yorkshirewoman had been improving her individual hurdling in recent months and at the start of the indoor season won the 60m hurdles by a convincing margin over world indoor champion Lolo Jones.

But the Olympic hurdles event has been scheduled to start less than 48 hours after the heptathlon finishes on August 4, ruling her out of a double gold bid at her home Olympics.

It was a bitter pill to swallow for Ennis and her team, but Minichiello says it was quickly put behind them.

He said: “The Olympic timetable is not helpful across any of the sports really; at some Games the home team structures the schedule to aid their athletes.

“Which is a shame given it’s a home Olympics and it would have been nice for her to go for two golds. But that’s what we’re left with and we’ll crack on.

“If I’m honest, it’s a blessing in disguise. It leaves us to concentrate on the heptathlon and nothing else.”