Hyleas Fountain of the US opens up with the fastest 100m Hurdles time in the Heptathlon (© Getty Images)
Daegu, KoreaAs in Berlin two years earlier, Jessica Ennis had arrived at the IAAF World Championships with the best score of the season. In 2009, it was 6587; in 2011, 6790.
But the story was already different by the end of the 100m Hurdles. En route to her World title, Ennis won her opening event in 12.93sec, opening up a 76 points lead over the field which was never overhauled.
Here, she found herself in the unusual position of losing, albeit narrowly, to Hyleas Fountain of the United States. It was her first defeat in a Heptathlon high hurdles race since the 2006 European Championships.
It was not that Ennis ran badly, although her time of 12.94sec was perhaps not what she was hoping for having set a personal best of 12.79 earlier this month. It was more that the 30-year-old American, whose year has been undermined by injury, rose to the occasion as she reduced her season’s best from 13.12 to 12.93.
In third place, Jessica Zelinka set a season’s best of 13.01, with Ennis’s fellow Brit Louise Hazel one place behind her in a personal best of 13.24. Germany’s silver medallist in Berlin, Jennifer Oeser, was fifth in 13.33.
That performance was enough to give Fountain the overall lead after one event with 1135 points. But Ennis, just two points behind, looked relaxed afterwards as she moved through the mixed zone of media interviews, stopping twice, and smilingly declining a third request. Polite and businesslike.
If Ennis seemed broadly happy, Poland’s Karolina Tyminska was ecstatic after winning the second heat in a personal best of 13.12 – an improvement of 0.23sec. As she clapped her hands with glee at the clock, those behind her also had cause for celebration as two other set pbs, one equalled their pb, and two ran season’s bests.
Tatyana Chernova, second in this year’s world lists with 6773, finished one place behind the Pole in 13.32, matching the best she has ever done. Grit Sadeiko of Estonia and Lyudmyla Yosypenko of Ukraine, who respectively achieved 13.44 and 13.49.
Heat three scored even higher on the pb front – five of the seven running achieved a best ever mark, with Margaret Simpson of Ghana winning in 13.43 ahead of Remona Fransen of the Netherlands, who ran 13.57. A personal best.
Natalya Dobrynska, Ukraine’s Olympic champion, was another to break her personal best, lowering it by 0.1sec to 13.33 as she chased home the winner, Sara Aerts of Belgium, who recorded a season’s best of 13.38.
Zelinka established herself in third position on points, with 1123, followed by Tyminska on 1106, Hazel on 1089 , Chernova on 1077 and Oeser on 1075.
Mike Rowbottom for the IAAF
