Ennis strikes gold (From Ealing Times)

Ennis strikes gold

8:32pm Saturday 31st July 2010 in National Sport © Press Association 2011

Jessica Ennis claimed gold for Britain on the penultimate night of competition in the European Championships in Barcelona.

Ennis added the European heptathlon crown to the world title she won last year with a hard-fought victory over Olympic champion Nataliya Dobrynska of Ukraine, winning by just 45 points.

Ennis led from start to finish over two gruelling days of competition, as she had done in Berlin last year, but this time was pushed all the way by Dobrynska. The 24-year-old from Sheffield only had an 18-point lead (or cushion of around 1.3 seconds) going into the 800m, and Dobrynska briefly tried to wipe that out as she took the lead with 250m to go. But Ennis was having none of it and quickly reclaimed the lead before powering to victory in two minutes 10.18 seconds.

A time of 2:09.59 would have been enough to see Ennis break the 10-year-old British record of 6,831 points held by former Olympic champion Denise Lewis, but she came up nine points short on 6,823. The haul was a new personal best and championship record for Ennis, who told the BBC: "It's unbelievable to have won this event again.

"I had to raise my game at every level today and yesterday so to come out on top is unbelievable.

"It would have been good to have broken the record but before the 800 I just wanted to win, do everything I could to stay in the lead and get the gold medal - and I have.

"There's a lot of pressure and expectation but I'm so happy with myself for dealing with it.

"Watching the team get so many medals has been inspiring and put me under a lot more pressure."