When is ennis running 800m

She wasn't the only one. In the build-up to the Olympics, Ennis-Hill was the undisputed 'face of the Games', the woman charged with delivering London's 'Cathy Freeman moment'. Mo Farah and the men's rowing coxless four shouldered a similar burden as pre-event favourites. But they didn't carry the weight of a nation in quite the same way. Finishing second was nowhere for Ennis-Hill.

If you believe her long-time coach Toni Minichiello, all it took was The heptathlon is like a boxing bout which goes the full 12 rounds. Two hour days of competition featuring seven gruelling events. In Minichiello's view, the knockout punch came in round one: the m hurdles. The morning of Friday, 3 August was sunny and bright, a good start for Ennis-Hill. Potential for inclement British weather had given her sleepless nights in the build-up.

While forcing down a big breakfast in the Olympic village - coffee, banana, cereal, toast and yoghurt - support staff were trying anything to distract her. The illusion would soon be shattered spectacularly. Before the Games, Ennis-Hill had received hundreds of invites to sponsor events at the Olympic Stadium.

She turned down every one. Really adrenaline-filling. On arriving for competition, Minichiello couldn't help but take an early look. I went back straight in and said: 'There's 80, of your mates turned up to watch you.

Prepared is pre-armed. It worked. Ennis-Hill's time of Incredibly, it would have won individual m hurdles gold at four of the previous five Olympics. Naturally deferential, Ennis-Hill baulks at any suggestion she had it won so early - especially with a nagging doubt about the long jump hanging over her. But, as she does several times during an hour-long conversation looking back on a career-defining victory, she admits that during those two days she often felt like a one-off version of herself.

Obviously instead it was a good different because I was ready to run the fastest time of my life. She soon showed that strength again. Having flown out of the blocks in the hurdles, she consolidated her position at the top of the standings with a jump of 1.

A throw of The next scene comes just after 9pm - it is now 15 hours since her 6am alarm call. The Olympic Stadium is under floodlights. The best seat in the house belongs to Laviai Nielsen, a year-old Londoner who, as a volunteer kit carrier and sometime athlete, is walking into the stadium carrying the future Olympic champion's tracksuit.

The experience will affect Nielsen so profoundly that she will immediately knuckle down in the sport to such an extent that five years later, she will win a World Championship silver medal in the same stadium.

Back in she was transfixed by Ennis-Hill's focus. The smiles on the start line for the m hurdles at 10am were gone. For the second time that day, Ennis-Hill ran faster than she had ever done before - and ever would again. A m personal best of Ennis-Hill never usually struggled to sleep between the two days of a heptathlon.

But despite her lead, she tossed and turned. Irrational fears about whether her alarm would go off - "I must have set at least three" - were part of the problem. Also concerning her was the first event of day two. The long jump. To understand the extent of those fears, we need to rewind a little.

Just weeks before London , Ennis-Hill remembers calling fiance Andy Hill in floods of tears from a preparation camp in Portugal. Training for the heptathlon is a constant juggling act, with athletes rarely having the time to concentrate too heavily on one event.

In Portugal they scheduled four long jump sessions. My rhythm was all wrong. It knocked my confidence and I was just getting really frustrated.

I think Tony organised it without me at first. But I got wind of it and joined in. It was just really tense. I remember going back to my room and ringing Andy and saying 'I've ruined it all, it's all going to fall apart in this event' and him just trying to make me see sense of it.

If I'd only been able to jump five metres there, London would have been a very different story. A five-metre jump was exactly how Ennis-Hill's heptathlon story resumed on day two.

Was a jump of 5. It was a brain fade of a different kind. Up in the stands, Minichiello worked out what had gone wrong. Bricey [Ennis-Hill's biomechanist Paul Brice] asked me what I was going to say to her and I said, 'I don't know, but I'll work it out by the time I get to the bottom of the stairs'.

Accessibility Links Skip to content. Menu Close. Log in Subscribe. Andrew Longmore. In fact, that smooth oscillation in vision has several functions. Firstly, it provides runners with information about their direction of travel, and secondly it tells them where their feet are about to land.

In addition, maintaining expansion of their visual field including peripheral vision helps maintain an upward lengthening of the neck muscles which facilitates good head poise, triggering an up-thrust along the spine and a sideways expansion of the springy, supportive back musculature. This prevents side-to-side movement or over-rotation and allows the legs and arms to move freely with the minimum amount of energy expenditure. There are other reasons why athletes like Dibaba look as though they are floating across the ground and are experiencing a feeling of buoyancy rather than heaviness as they run.

She possesses a particularly well connected primary control with her head and neck lengthening out of a supportive back. Her head remains balanced on top of her spine even when she looks behind or up at a stadium screen to monitor what competitors are doing. She is remarkably symmetrical. Her pelvis remains on a level plane and her arms release away efficiently from the chest wall, opening and closing around a degree angle at the elbows.

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