Jessica Ennis: Golden Girl

So much expectation on the slender shoulders of Jessica Ennis. The

Suez I walked out in the stadium, the crowd was so loud, it gave me

goose bumps. Jessica Ennis, oh my goodness! I am glad I have got the

goods got under my belt but there is a lot of work to be done

tomorrow. 6.428, the moment is getting closer.

The defining moment of her life. Jessica Ennis is just 800 metres

away from Olympic gold. This is the Jessica Ennis has been the poster

girl for the London Olympics. She missed the last Games because of

injury and since then has won and lost world titles. So for Jess and

coach Toni Minichiello this season coach Toni Minichiello this season

was about getting it right when it matters most. Isn't it just the

thing come within sport if you coach people and the highlight of

the session is I hope they are sick! New kind of feel, yes, I have

trained you! Olympic training starts close to home. Coach Toni

Minichiello has guided Jess since her talent was spotted at a summer

training camp when she was just 11- years-old. It doesn't feel any

different to any other day. The closer we will get, it will feel

more important. We have started her harder than we have in the past,

but I think that is the natural progression. You need a group

environment. Mainly for the banter more than anything. Somebody to

look at when you are not feeling as good as you would like. It makes it

a lot easier when there is a few of you going through the pain and not

just yourself. We kind of like help each other on, and you can measure

yourself against each other and judge where you are. When you are

running, it is a big group of you so it is definitely easier. When

they do sessions like this, there is also a mental element. I believe

there was a mental element, but psychologically, if I can get

through this, there is not much I can't do. If I can just go through

this session, I can achieve whatever I need to achieve. The do

get used to it and you look forward to it in a weird kind of funny way.

You enjoy the pain of it. You feel better ones to have done it,

obviously. It is over, well done. Let's go for a walk, guys. It is

tiring, but the first session is done now so I am easing my way back

into it. The cost the Olympics are so special, people overdo it and

they get hurt so I am making a conscious effort that we keep these

things in perspective. It is a long way off at the moment. It is the

beginning of the winter so I have a lot of hard work to do but it is

definitely getting closer. Seeing him sat there with his laptop open

doing some work, that never, ever, ever happens. We will arrange to

meet and we will say 9:30am. To her, that means she turns up at five to

nine. Just running over hurdles, getting used to drilling work. We

are doing some warm up work here and then we will drift into the

slightly larger hurdles. Keep your trailing leg tie it all the way

through. Now there is a diminishing return on how much better she can

get so you are trying to find very small margins of consistency of

performance. You are talking about hundredths. Keep it bent. You know

as your leading arm comes in like this, it doesn't push.

definitely felt like my foot was up. Yes, but the legs were too lengthy

for me. I need a few more degrees, yes? Their relationship has changed

in their 15 years together. She is not afraid to share her thoughts.

It is different now obviously. I understand the events more and it

has to be more of the discussion. If I am not understanding what he

is saying or agreeing, then it is good to discuss it. It didn't look

too bad. It started off, then it opened up further. Keep it tight.

Changes difficult. She knows I am successful if I do that. Now the

position is that if I make changes, I might not be successful so as a

coach you have to overcome that and say there is a benefit to this.

two still early days. It was a good session but I still have a lot of

work on, but I am pleased with the Javelin is the event Jess has

always struggled with the most. At last summer's World Championships

it cost her gold. There's a lot to work on with javelin coach Mick

Hill. The difference is that, or that. It is minute. That much body

lean. It looks good today. It is about patients. It was the same in

long-jump the other day. It is nice to feel it, to do it in the correct

way, but you can quite easily lose it again so I need to keep

practising and hope it comes naturally. It is great to have

sessions like this - it gives me confidence. It is good. If we have

reasonable throws, we will measure them but it can sap your confidence

if you think it is far and it is not. Hopefully it is OK, but it is

confidential. 50m! Today it has felt better but we will see how far

it is. Even if it is only 40 metres, I am still happy with the session.

You have got to know what you did. We have an athlete who realises the

javelin is quite difficult. For the last few years it has been quite

good to Jess and she seems to produce on the big day. 42 metres

plus off a shortened run is very good. The each session she throws,

her confidence is getting better and better. It will probably take a

knock again at some stage this winter, but it is whether you can

get back up again and keep moving forwards. You are actually training

like a beast. Some great craft. I have pushed the sessions on a

little bit and she's working very well. Were that to complement?

it was. You can play that back as much as you like. What did you do

on Sunday? A grass running session on Monday morning, and circuits in

the afternoon. In Formula One, have mechanics who look at the car and

Tinker, that is Alison's role. She does the job of 15 Formula One

mechanics. Unfortunately they haven't got a spare car in the

garage in case this one doesn't work. If you are injury-free year

on year, you can make some progress. Injury makes you take a step back,

but if you can keep taking steps forward that is what makes you

successful. Jess has been injury- free since missing the last

Olympics. Her physio Alison Rose can see things that other people

can't and has detected a problem in her hip. I am just wondering if she

is not going correctly through. If she was running like that that

day... It is time to get to work with some eye-watering therapy.

is incredibly tight and then she screams and you know you are on the

right spot. There is more tension than there should be. The hip not

moving as it should obviously affects the where you walk and the

where you run. I have had a tight calf muscle, but obviously Alison

picks up on a lot more stuff that I don't really notice until there is

a problem so it is good to get rid of this tightness before it creates

something else. You generally will watch her, figure out what you are

looking out, do some tests, then treat Again and recheck. I am happy,

that is much better. It is just much more even. It feels good. I

can just feel some soreness. Is it still a little bit more tied?

seems more even. It's will loosen off.

With the heavy winter workload out of the way it's time to put Jess to

the test. Her first competitive appearance comes with home

I did shot put the other week but this is my first kind of real one

so I am just blowing off the cobwebs. It is the power and

strength, that is the additional weight training programme you have

got. The is difficult when you first start because you have been

in winter training so you are doing the same thing every week. It is

nice to kind of start freshening up, getting competitive again and

seeing how things work. She looks really good at the minute. She

seems to be running well. We will see how it goes. Jessica is back in

action, but her first long jump competition is not going to plan.

You have already set yourself into the somersault position and it is

not coming back underneath. You are in that position, and then you are

in. It is poor. Below 6.424 indoors, it is not good enough. I am

disappointed with the long jump, but generally it is the first

competition of the year. Hopefully I will learn that rustiness off

I have got the hurdles this afternoon so again it will be the

first time I have raced. Obviously I like to run a good time but we

will see how it goes, just blowing that rustiness off. I am quite

nervous. I want to go away at least a little bit happy. She is in good

form so it is exciting seeing it, out in competition. This time, Tony

is not disappointed as she powers Clear in the hurdles. I am pleased

with that. It is a good time. I don't know what the official time

was but I am happy with that. It is a better ending to the day than I

thought. She was ill last night so to come into this not feeling 100%

physically, I wouldn't tell any of the other media that because you

are not going to show your film until ages away.

One is your mind set going into the blocks? I'm not being funny, but I

just after move on from there. I was annoyed with the long jump.

do you think you got stuck? first race of the season. Every

competition is important and you want every competition to count, so

there are nervous but you just want to keep doing well. I will keep

focusing on the next competition, my training, and getting that right

Under 15 girls... We're next to the Yorkshire county championships. It

tends to mark the start of the season. It's nice and low key. You

can get a bit of throwing done before we start. Next week we have

Manchester. The week after that we've off to austya. I'm stiff

today. I've always done championships like this. It's nice

to dot Yorkshire championships and mix it with Grand Prixs as well.

It's nice to still have that variation. They're still great

events. There's a lot of good kids who are hopefully going to be

future champions who start here as well. It's a good event. Your left

foot is late. The shot is still ahead of the hip. That's why it's

better, but it hasn't quite got a bite on it. I think I need to stay

back over and work this more. Why does he look as if she's in

shot putt detention? The standard is mixed. 69-year-old Sheila admits

she's unlikely to mix it to the Olympics. She's such a nice person

is Jess. She encourages even me not throwing so far. I think she might

take me next year. I might lose my focus and then she can bust out a

six metres and take me. When the throwing stops the

autographs and photographs start. feel bad if I say no. I kind of

expect it when I come to competitions like this, but it's

hard sometimes because you want to stay focused. I still want to

compete really well. You just have to get a bit of a balance I suppose.

Bit windy off the left, if you do what you did the other day, I think

it will go. Jess has been going good so we're looking forward to

the comp. It's blowing her over. It nearly

blew the javelin away from her and into her head. It's a challenge,

but again, this is why she's doing this competition. It's a long way

away from the Olympic Stadium, but it's very, very useful. She had a

smack at that early and hard. Something was missing today. I'm

still happy with the way it's going. It was OK. I'm hoping that I'll

save a good throw for a couple of weeks' time. We were hoping for a

bit more, but well, it's not been too bad. Soy suppose I shouldn't

complain. I'd have liked to have seen a bit more today. What time

tomorrow? I don't care. I'm taking the javelin. He's so annoyed.

we have a photo? Yeah, no problem. With her technique tuend in the

individual event, it's time to put it all together. She heads to

Austria for the multievent championships a crucial dress

We're in a small town in Austria. This is the place where all the

world's best multieventers gather at the end of May to compete in the

one big combine events competition outside of any major championships.

This will be the one heptathlon that Jessica does before the

Olympics. So this is the one chance really to see what kind of shape

she's in in a heptathlon setting. She will do other competitions but

this is to see how it gels together. It would be nice to win, but it is

also really important that I just see how all the individual events

are going and how they're coming together and how my training's gone.

I think both are equally important. It's good to have everyone here.

It's great to have their support and Ali and my physio and soft

tissue therapist. They know my body inside out. I know if there's ever

an issue that they are there, on hand, to help and fix it. Say --

for a sponsored athlete, your socks are dire, worse than dire. I think

they're the worst socks we get in the clinic. You are joking.

It is a tense environment and a tense situation when you're coming

to compete. It's nice to bring a bit of humour to it, a couple of

days before and relaxed, then get ready to switch on and compete

Welcome Jessica Ennis! Ever year they do a presentation in the civic

hall. It's part and parcel of the tradition. They did in the past,

they used to bring in the athletes one by one on the back of Harley-

Davidsons, which was phenomenal, but worrying to a coach.

It's great. This is my fourth year here. It's always really good crowd

and loads of support. It's just a really nice occasion for the town.

Yeah, it's really great. The crowd and everyone's brilliant. This is

Jen ter Osa. She's lovely. She's the only reason I do heptathlon.

I coach heptathlon. I don't do it! She's on it has been the team

description. She's fouk used, ready to go. Warm up went well and she's

happy. You can't ask for more than that.

As ever, the hurdles are the first of the seven events. Jess and Tony

are looking for the strong start. Happy with that? Yeah. Good. Good

startment I feel a bit nervous about the jumps because we haven't

done any jumps competitions before It got a bit toey for me. Do you

feel close? Not really. I don't know.

Not good. Not good. 85 is not acceptable. So she won't be happy

with that in the slightest. We'll just move on, move on. A very solid

shot putt, 14.51, a season res best. It's been an OK first three events.

If she can run quicker than 23.21 we will push on a little bit.

Heaven knows what you'll score on Go, go, go.

It's even. That's even. Don't You know the last five metres, you

need to lean in. 22.88, fantastic time in the 200. Kind of topped and

tailed it very well. She's a few points up on her personal best. All

together it's been a good day. only halfway through the events.

There's there's lots of work to be done.

No tension in this event. Tension will hurt you. Don't try too hard

but still put the effort in. But loose cheeks, facial cheeks and

stuff like that. This is going really well. Allow it to do its

thing. You're buzzing kid. You're absolutely buzzing, just be smart

now. Not that you're not smart. I think

Well done Jess. I'm so glad I've not come away disappointed. I

always come away from the long jump disappointed. So, yeah. Equal PB,

yeah. Yes! Come on now, I've got to nail

He's happy. We're all happy. She's pulled down on it a bit.

47.11, so a PB. We've had a couple of PBs. That's good. Going into the

last event, the 800m, Jess has the chance not only to win the

competition, but to break the Come on Jess! All right.

208. Number one.

Jess? I'm so pleased that I managed to get most of the events right and

score a big personal best and a British record and to win, it's

just brilliant. Well done. He's the man. It's only an FA Cup semi-final.

We're just through to the final. One to go, mate.

Thankfully all the events came together and I got it this time.

It's all about the Olympics now. I've done my first heptathlon of

the season. I just sharpen up individual events and then the next

big one is the Olympics. It's very much here now. I'm ready for it, I

think. Incredibly happy, as she should be. If you can repeat this

performance it will be tough for people to beat her in London. You

never know. You do the best you can, whatever score you get, hopefully

that's good enough to win. They've trained six days a week

since September. Jess has produced the performance of her life in

Austria and her medical team has kept injuries at bay. The golden

COMMENTATOR: Absolutely brilliant by Jessica Ennis. Everybody else is

trailing in her wake. One moment to do this in front of a home crowd in

London. I just wanted to make sure I gave them such a show.

COMMENTATOR: Here goes Jess! She is going to be the Olympic champion.

Everybody is on their feet. The pride of Sheffield. The pride of

Great Britain. Jessica Ennis is the Olympic champion! All this hard

work, I had to give it everything at the end.

COMMENTATOR: It's a perfect day for Jessica Ennis. Four years ago, we

were sat on her sofa at her house watching the Beijing Olympics and

thinking, damn, what might have been? Tony and alley and everyone's

worked with me for the past few years and after Beijing everyone

just said we're going for another four years to make sure you get

there in one piece and finish what we started.

So this is the moment that's made it all worthwhile, the hill runs,

the drills, the frustrations and the -- we've seen how hard Jessica

Ennis has worked for this Gold Medal at her home Olympics.

I was just really overwhelmed with the crowd firstly, and just