Test

Official Website of Jessica Ennis - Olympic Champion

Skip to content

Coach's Corner

Read Toni's exclusive blog every month

Making history in a different way

Post 21 July 2011 By Toni Minichiello In Coach's Corner Blog

font size decrease font size increase font size
E-mail

At the time of writing this blog the year to go marker to the London 2012 Olympics fast approaches. From the number of emails and phone calls I’ve received it seems to be the media obsession.

The reality for me, is more importantly the World Championships less than 6 weeks away. Not because it has any bearing on the result of the Olympic games, but it may make history in a different way.

Jessica became only the 6th British woman to win a World Outdoor title in Berlin. Following in the footsteps of Fatima Whitbread (1987), Liz McColgan (91), Sally Gunnell (93), Paula Radcliffe (05), and Christine Ohuruogu (07), and of those 5 only 2 managed to convert that success into Olympic Gold the following year.

So that squashes any thought that a win in Daegu, guarantees anything in London.

The history I’m focused on, is that no British woman has ever retained a track and field World title, in fact no British woman has won twice.

In Heptathlon terms only the World Record Holder, Jackie Joyner-Kersee (87 & 93), and European Record Holder Carolina Kluft (03, 05, & 07) have won back to back titles, and Sabine Braun (91 & 97) the only other to have won the title twice in the 13 championships to date. Three big names from Heptathlon history.

The focus over the last 2 months since Gotzis has been on training more than competition. The reason is simply to prepare for the World Champs. Only after will there be any real talk about London 2012.

The next competition for Jessica will be the Aviva UK Trials and Championships in Birmingham, where hopefully we all get an idea of just how ready Jessica is to make history.

Toni