Pictures of the Athletes' Village in Delhi

Posted on 23/09/2010

There seems to be an awful lot of fuss surrounding the 'filthy' living conditions of the Athletes' Village at the Commonwealth Games, but surely these track stars are just acting like divas? Surely stories of dirt-riddled bathrooms and dog-muddied beds are not true. Surely...

Photos of the Athletes' Village - courtesy of the BBC

Great expectations could ruin 2012 Games

Posted on 04/08/2010

Martin Lipton, writing in the Mirror, has urged Britons to show caution in the attitude they show towards Olympic stars ahead of the 2012 Games in London. Lipton believes that Great Britain's record medal tally of 19 at the European Championships will not necessarily translate into Olympic success.

OK, so that's sorted then. On the back of the European Championships, the GB team will sweep the board in track and field at London 2012.

But while Jessica Ennis and Phillips Idowu will be favourites, we need to get our targets properly set.

Continue reading "Great expectations could ruin 2012 Games"

Time to get real about European athletics success

Posted on 02/08/2010

Reality. Something that is rarely seen in a British newspaper, particularly when it comes to British sporting success. But reality is what Neil Wilson delivers in the Daily Mail in the aftermath of the European Atheltics Championships, and it is an attitude that will hopefully be mirrored by our athletes ahead of London 2012...

While Jessica Ennis talked to the media at Britain’s team hotel about her gold medal, loud words could be heard across the lobby. Charles van Commenee, the team’s Dutch chief coach, was giving the women’s sprint relay team the mother and father of a rollicking for failing to qualify for the final.

The texts, tweets and golden headlines that rained down on Britain’s athletics team after their most successful European Championships since 1998 were moments to savour. It was not, though, a time for those who rose to the occasion to get ahead of themselves, their hard-headed coaches made clear, nor a time to think the work was done.

The danger of the plaudits is that the athletes are exposed to a cold shower of reality at the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, in 12 months. These championships are not the Olympic Games. Their relationship to the events that will take place in London in 2012 is about as distant as a first cousin once removed. It is a rare athlete among Europe’s winners who can say they leave today wearing the mantle of Olympic favourite. Phillips Idowu and Jessica Ennis, yes.

It was important to Idowu that he was able to confirm himself as the supreme championship performer. It was important to Ennis that the aura that surrounds the world No 1 heptathlete was reclaimed from the American Hyleas Fountain before the winter break. Mo Farah, the first double gold medallist at 5,000metres and 10,000m since 1990, and Dai Greene, the 400m hurdles champion, are close to being contenders, too.

But one devastating statistic says it all about these European Championships. Greene is the only man from any country on the track here whose performance ranks him in the world’s top six this year — and at sixth. Farah thinks he is close to being there. ‘I was sixth and seventh in the last two world championships. Last lap in the last worlds was 57sec; I ran 55 last night. I have that belief now, I have that confidence,’ he said.

Greene accepts there is more to be done to challenge the Americans. ‘I have to be under 48 seconds to win a medal at worlds or the Olympics — I hope to be there before this season’s out,’ he said.

And he will target the Commonwealth Games to push him through the barrier. ‘To be the best in the world I had to be the best in Europe,’ he added. ‘It was one of the boxes I had to tick. Naturally now, if I keep putting in solid work, I will progress.’

The four gold medallists illustrate the commitment needed from others in the team. Idowu and Greene changed coaches and moved homes to other cities. Farah spends weeks of every year parted from his wife and daughter in the ‘middle of nowhere’ in Kenya, sharing a room in a hut with African runners and eating meals cooked on an open fire.

‘You have to train with the best, everything focused,’ said Farah. ‘There’ll be times when you think it’s too hard but you have to be strong mentally. You can’t live a normal life if you want to be the best in the world. They (the Africans) are beatable. You’ve just got to be stronger mentally, not scared. Just dig, dig and dig it will come.’

The professional coaches yesterday were encouraged more than euphoric about the week’s results. Greene’s coach, Malcolm Arnold, simply said ‘well done’. ‘High praise coming from him,’ said Greene, laughing. The medal count confirms only that the Brits are rising from the depths they reached in 2006 at these championships when they did not win one individual gold. It takes the pressure off UK Athletics from their paymasters at UK Sport because the team have won more medals than their top target of 15.

But Britain won 16 medals in 1998 in Budapest, nine of them gold, and a year later at the world championships only Colin Jackson won gold. Van Commenee has said he wants eight medals in London, one gold. What happened this week will increase his confidence that the target can be achieved, but it will not encourage him to be bolder in his predictions.

Behind-the-scenes with Jessica Ennis

Posted on 01/08/2010

Jessica Ennis is undisputedly the best heptathlete in the world after she added European gold to World Championships gold on Saturday. Here, the Independent’s Emily Dugan provides an insight into the world of a girl who carries the hopes of a nation at London 2012...

At just after 8pm last night, Jessica Ennis hurtled across the finish line, strides ahead of her competitors. The 800-metre race in the warm Barcelona evening was her final event in the European Athletic Championships – and secured the heptathlete both the gold medal and a championship record. Ennis consistently led the scoreboard over the seven events, beating Olympic champion Nataliya Dobrynska by 45 points, with a score of 6,823.

Speaking with typical humility after the race, she said: "It's been nerve-wracking having all the athletes on my heels. It feels so good to win again. I had to raise my game to come out on top, I'm so proud to come out on top again. Before the 800m I just wanted to win and I have! I'm so made up."

The 24-year-old, who has been captaining the Great Britain squad in Barcelona, is – despite some strong rivals – the best female heptathlete in the world. Not that you would know it to talk to her. "I still go out there nervous and worried. I don't go out there thinking I've got it in the bag because that's never the case," she said, speaking at Newcastle stadium ahead of the championships.

Even before she had racked up the thousands of points that were behind her on the scoreboard as she went into the final event last night, the bookmakers had been making her the favourite for gold – but that did not stop her keeping expectations low. "Well, it'd be good to get a medal, but I don't want to say...," she hedged.

It would be understandable if Ennis was cocky: she has taken home gold medals two years running – first in the 2009 World Championships for the heptathlon and then in the 2010 World Indoor Championships for the pentathlon. She has also long been tipped as a golden girl for London's Olympic Games in 2012 – now less than two years away. But bragging just isn't Ennis's style.

"I hate it when people are like, 'Oh, I'm so brilliant at this'," she said, matter-of-factly. "I do understand that sometimes in athletics you have to big yourself up – especially the sprinters, where it's all about macho and being the best – but, for me, it's about being realistic."

Born in Sheffield, where she still lives with her boyfriend, she remains close to her mother, a social worker from Derbyshire, and her father, a painter and decorator originally from Jamaica.
Ennis's parents first introduced her and her sister, Carmel, to athletics in the hope that it might stop them getting bored in the summer holidays.

"They took me and Carmel down to this athletics summer camp to keep us entertained and tire us out. I'd be running round doing everything, and she'd be sat down in the corner just chatting and would say, 'I can't be bothered to run'. I think she preferred the social aspect. I don't think they had any idea I'd turn out to be any good."

And she didn't just turn out "good". Despite being no more than 5ft 5in tall, she has jumped higher than any British woman before her (1.95 metres). For most people, accolades of that magnitude could only result in a similarly sized ego, but the closest she comes to gloating is a fervent peek at her silverware. "I always have a sneaky look at my gold medal every now and again because it was such a big moment for me." But before anyone could accuse her of bragging, she added: "I don't really put any of my medals and stuff up, though. They're in a drawer. I've got quite a few at my parents' house, which my dad displays everywhere, and I'm just like, 'Take them down'."

With all that modesty, when she does brush against the showbiz world that comes from being one of Britain's best-known sportswomen, she finds it just as nerve-racking as stepping onto the track. "When I compete, I'm really nervous and my heart is pounding. But then doing other things, like presenting awards at the Mobos, that was just so nerve-racking, too. Having to walk out on that stage with massive heels on and read off an autocue, I was thinking, 'Oh God, what if I say something wrong or fall over', and all those things that you panic about. But it was great fun."

Despite admitting to being star-struck by all the big names backstage, she acknowledges that some were starry-eyed at seeing her. "Lamar came up and said, 'I watched you – well done', and I thought, that's really weird. And then JLS came up to me and said, 'You did really well', and one of them said, 'My mum loves you. Come and meet my mum', and I just thought, this is all really, really odd."

The contrast between Ennis and some of her more posturing contemporaries in athletics is stark. In the gym at Newcastle stadium, she shifted from one baggy-tracksuited leg to the other while her picture was taken. "I'm not a big fan of getting photos done," she admitted. In training next to her was the triple jumper Phillips Idowu, dressed head to toe in shiny Lycra and stretching flamboyantly while music pumped into his ears from oversized headphones.

Ennis's normalcy came in handy in 2008 when she was ruled out of the Beijing Olympics at the last minute because of a fracture to her right ankle. The disappointment and pressure to recover from an injury that could have put her out of the sport for ever was immense, but Ennis approached the task with a typical lack of fuss. "It was a real blow because it was an Olympic year ... I watched loads of DVDs and my boyfriend bought me Smallville, so I watched season one to seven. That kept me entertained."

But having recovered from the injury, she inevitably feels even more pressure to succeed when the Games come to London in two years' time. "I hoped Beijing would be my first opportunity to experience the Olympics and be a part of it, so it makes it so much more important this time round. I really want to be ready for it and in great shape. Because I missed out on that opportunity two years ago, it definitely makes it more important for me personally."

But Ennis wouldn't be Ennis if she didn't have a level-headed way of coping. "I'm not letting it get to me. There's a lot going on between now and then. There's more training and things I want to achieve, so that keeps me distracted for now. Though I do think about 2012, I try not to worry about it – it's something that I want to enjoy and make the most of, not something I'm dreading."

When her car arrived for the three-hour drive back to Sheffield, one of the public relations team offered her a bottle of water for the journey. "Er, no thanks, I'll only need a pee if I do that," she confessed, adding: "I don't drink all that much actually, but I probably shouldn't admit that should I?"