There was disappointment for Jessica Ennis as she came away with a silver medal from the world indoor championships in Istanbul.
“I’m absolutely gutted,” the 26 year old Brit said afterwards, “but at the same time I’m pleased with a PB and a national record so I can’t grumble too much.
“Next week I am going to take a bit of a break then get back into it and work on what I can and come back stronger in the summer.
“I need to make sure I learn from these experiences, get it right and turn silver into gold this summer.”
She took silver in the women’s pentathlon following two tough final events, but was able to celebrate a significant indoor PB and national record with her total points count of 4965, 48 points behind the gold medal winning Natalya Dobrynska on a world record of 5013.
Although disappointing for the World silver medallist who clearly made the trip to Turkey with her eyes firmly on gold, it was a strong performance from Ennis who once again demonstrated she can continue to improve her individual disciplines across the board.
However the toughest test came in the fourth event of the day– the long jump, Ennis was well down on her usual best and her furthest leap of 6.19m was seventh best from the pentathlon field. This resulted in Ennis slipping to third place in the overall standings behind Dobrynska and Lithuania’s Austra Skujyte.
In the fifth and final event, the 800m, Ennis had a near hopeless task of having to ensure a six second gap ahead of Dobrynska if she was to stand any hope of retaining the title. As it was, the Olympic champion was able to track Ennis throughout the race and the GB star was unable to put enough distance in between herself and the Ukrainian to steal a last minute victory.
Sportsister, The Women’s Sports Magazine