She couldn’t, could she? Three years after completing her last major event at London 2012 – and after injuries, childbirth, and the pain and strain of restarting her athletic career from scratch – Jessica Ennis-Hill faces the staggering yet increasingly real prospect of becoming the 2015 world heptathlon champion. Three months ago she was wondering whether she was ever going to shake off an Achilles injury that pestered and tested her. Three weeks ago she was undecided over whether to go to Beijing. Now she has more golden thoughts on her mind.
Ennis-Hill goes into day two on a score of 4,005 points, with Katarina Johnson-Thompson within striking distance on 3,925 and the talented 20-year-old Dutch athlete Nadine Visser third with 3,871. The pre-event favourite, Brianne Theisen-Eaton, who is fourth on 3,865, believes she has “no chance of gold” after what she said was an “atrocious day”.
Even at this stage it looks like gold will be between Ennis-Hill and Johnson-Thompson - and it could yet come down to the final event, the 800m, a prospect that leaves Johnson-Thompson both excited and fearful. “I don’t want to battle it out with Jess in the 800m,” she said laughing, “because neither of us will give up. I would like to get good scores in the long jump and javelin to give myself an easier time because she is Olympic champion. But the 800m could be really special.”
Ennis-Hill, meanwhile, says that she is delighted to be leading but knows Johnson-Thompson will come at her. “I think it is a nice position to be in and I’ve got a bit of a buffer,” she said. “The long jump is obviously a weaker event for me but if I can put some solid performances together again, we will see where that leaves me”
Prediction in the heptathlon can be a fiendishly tricky science. But if Ennis-Hill, Johnson-Thompson and Theisen-Eaton were to all get season’s bests in the long jump, javelin and 800m, then Johnson-Thompson would come out on top with 6,700 points to Ennis-Hill’s 6,688, with Theisen-Eaton third in 6,642.
It is understandable, then, that the bookies give Johnson-Thompson the edge. But it could all change in a eye-blink. Is Johnson-Thompson really likely to get close to her long jump season’s best of 6.93m, given she jumped 6.50m three weeks ago at the Anniversary Games? Or go as slow as the 2min 12.78sec she ran for the 800m, given her personal best is 2:07.64?
Whatever happens you can bet that Toni Minichiello and Mike Holmes, the respective coaches of Ennis-Hill and Johnson-Thompson, will be working away on their iPads playing through potential scenarios in the coming hours.
When the heptathlon started at 9am the temperature was already climbing towards 30 degrees. Scorching times for the 100m hurdles on the Bird’s Nest’s notoriously fast track quickly followed. Johnson-Thompson was smooth and steady as she posted a time of 13.37sec, a personal best by 0.07sec. But in the next heat all eyes were on Ennis-Hill.
Understandably she looked pensive: this was her first major championships since her gold medal at London 2012.
Back then she had run 12.54sec, a time that left her opponents fighting it out for silver at an early stage. This time there was no knockout blow. But a respectable time of 12.91 put her second behind the 20-year-old Dutch athlete Nadine Visser and ahead of Theisen-Eaton, the pre-competition favourite, who was third.
The high jump was a slow-burning mini-drama played out over two hours and 35 minutes.
Johnson-Thompson was in desperate trouble early on, failing twice at her opening height of 1.80m. A third failure would have left her with no points, and she approached the bar with all the jittery confidence of an executive attempting walk across hot coals on a company away day.
Yet she cleared it, and then 1.86m and 1.89m to move into second place behind Ennis-Hill, who jumped 1.86m.
“The high jump was very shaky and emotional,” admitted Johnson-Thompson. “It was a lack of competition practice really. After two fouls I thought I have been fighting all season to get to Beijing and I don’t want it to end this way. I was so relieved to get over.
“When I cleared the 1.80m Jess said she was absolutely crapping herself for me and that I was giving her a heart attack so it was nice of her to support me.”
The big shock was Theisen-Eaton fluffing her lines by only clearing 1.80m, which meant that she slipped to fifth – already 87 points behind Ennis-Hill and 57 behind Johnson-Thompson.
Ennis-Hill remained in the lead after the third event of the day, the shot put, but she was disappointed with a throw of 13.73m, especially given she appeared to go well over 14m with her first attempt only for her to lose her balance and fall out of the circle.
Such was the see-sawing nature of the heptathlon, that while Johnson-Thompson equalled her shot personal best with a throw of 12.47m she also slipped to ninth – yet bounced backed up to second by winning the 200m in 23.08 sec, with Ennis-Hill second in 23.42.
Afterwards Johnson-Thompson shook her head when she was asked whether she was surprised to see Ennis-Hill leading. “No,” she insisted.
“I’ve always said don’t underestimate Jess and that she will come back and do herself justice.” And she is certainly not finished yet.
