Solid workout lifts Ennis as defence of world title looms

The 25-year-old competed in five events in total at the Alexander Stadium, with plenty to encourage her ahead of her trip to South Korea.

Yesterday she produced a season’s best of 6.44m in the long jump, just seven centimetres below her personal best, and threw 42.93m in the javelin to complete a highly satisfactory weekend.

“I’m really pleased,” the 25-year-old said.

“I’ve been working on some things in the long jump and I feel that it’s improving so I’m glad to have had that jump.

“Hopefully I can put a little bit more on it come Daegu. It’s been a really good weekend.

“It’s nice to do five events and not have to end with the 800m like the heptathlon.”

Ennis does not have to worry about qualifying for Daegu as defending champion from Berlin, but she still put in a number of impressive performacnes.

On Saturday she equalled her personal best in the shot, managing 14.25 metres in the third round of the shot.

That was understandably well down on the 16.73m of the winner Eden Francis, but Ennis was delighted to have performed well in one of her weaker events.

Ennis went on to win the high jump title with a best of 1.89m, two centimetres down on her season’s best but enough to finish comfortably ahead of Emma Perkins.

And after comfortably winning her heat in the 100m hurdles, she went on to finish second overall, coming in behind specialist Tiffany Ofili-Porter in a time of 12.96 secs.

“It’s a busy couple of days but I wanted to do as many events as possible,” Ennis said. “I’m feeling good. I’m doing lots of training so it’s nice to come out and compete again.

“I wanted to put some events together and see how it’s going. After this weekend I’m hoping to do a hurdles race in Loughborough the week before we go out to Daegu. That’ll be it.”

Elsewhere, Phillips Idowu defended his late withdrawal from the Championships, claiming the paying public would prefer him to sign autographs than put in a poor performance.

To publicise the event, Idowu’s image was plastered all over the Stadium – his home track – along with Ennis and Olympic champion Christine Ohuruogu.

But while Ennis and Ohuruogu both competed, Idowu told organisers late on Saturday evening that he would not be competing.

“I didn’t think it was respectful to come here and just do one jump or put in a performance which was below par because people pay their money to watch the best British athletes compete at their best and I’m not at my best right now,” said Idowu. “It’s a shame but I’ve had a tough couple of weeks training and competing. I think people will prefer me to go out and jump well in Korea than to come here and jump poorly.

“I’d rather come here out of a track suit for once and meet the people face to face, sign autographs and stuff like that.”

Idowu is currently embroiled in a row with UK Athletics head coach Charles van Commenee over the former’s withdrawal from the European Team Championships earlier this year.

But although this latest incident is unlikely to help matters, Idowu is firmly focused on retaining his world title in Daegu.

Idowu’s absence was put into perspective by Mo Farah, who claimed his ninth win in a row this season, the 28-year-old cruising to victory in the 5,000m in 14 minutes 00.72 seconds, more than a minute slower than the British record he set last Friday.

Farah, who has won over 3,000m, 5,000m, 10,000m and on his debut in the half-marathon during that streak since moving to Oregon, said: “I thought if I’m going to be at home then why not come out and compete here.

“Jess (Ennis) is here Dai (Greene) is here, so it wouldn’t be fair to not turn up for the fans, even though I could have done without the race.”

Perri Shakes-Drayton became the first woman to win the 400m hurdles and the 400m, the 24-year-old Londoner winning her specialist event in 55.52 to add to her victory over Ohuruogu and Shana Cox on Saturday.

But there was disappointment in the men’s discus as new British record holder Lawrence Okoye could only finish fifth, leaving Abdul Buhari and Carl Myserscough to claim the automatic places on the team for Daegu and the selectors with a headache.

Both Okoye and Brett Morse have the ‘A’ standard this year, with Morse finishing third, almost three metres ahead of Okoye.

After numerous indoor titles, world bronze medallist Jenny Meadows won her first national crown outdoors in the 800m, while Andrew Osagie took the men’s title and European Under-23 silver medallist James Shane won the 1500m with a new personal best of 3:36.22 and the ‘B’ standard for Daegu.

Lawrence Clarke also achieved the ‘B’ standard with victory in a new personal best of 13.58 in the 110m hurdles, while Tom Parsons, Martyn Bernard and Robbie Grabarz cleared the ‘B’ standard of 2.28m in the high jump, Parsons taking the title on countback.

Holly Bleasdale missed out on improving her own British pole vault record with three failures at 4.71m, but still won the competition with a first-time clearance at 4.56m, while Goldie Sayers won a ninth title in the javelin.