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In with a shot: But Jessica Ennis must overcome her physical limitations
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Colin Jackson is sure Jessica Ennis has what it takes to win Olympic gold for Britain in the 2012 heptathlon, describing her as the Special One.
Frank Dick, president of the European Coaches Association who guided Daley Thompson to multievent gold in 1984, has called her "an exceptional athlete".
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Ennis is the one competitor Jackson picked out in the course of a gloomladen prognosis of the prospects for British athletics gold in London.
So what are her chances of delivering a medal in today?s pentathlon at the European Indoor Championships in Birmingham?
Although the great Carolina Kluft will be defending a five-year unbeaten record in multi-event competition, the Swede appears vulnerable.
Denise Lewis, Kluft?s predecessor as Olympic champion, said yesterday: "If anybody?s ever going to beat her in 10 years it will be here. She?s not looking at her best."
Yet even knowing that this winter?s No 1, Tia Hellebaut of Belgium, will not be competing, Ennis herself remains utterly sanguine about her medal prospects. "Very slim," she said.
It is more likely to be another Briton, Kelly Sotherton, who assumes Hellebaut?s mantle as challenger to Kluft. It would be wonderful if it was Sotherton who took advantage but the Birmingham resident is 30.
For those looking here for signs that British athletics may yet confound the doom merchant Jackson, Ennis, just 21, is a more intriguing sub-plot. In 2005 she was the world?s top-ranked junior.
Last year she improved 359 points to win a bronze in her first senior competition at the Commonwealth Games. She closed the gap on Sotherton as British No 1 with a further improvement at the European Championships.
Ennis, though, has one deficiency that will be apparent to anyone watching when she walks out to start with the 60metres hurdles this morning. She is a shrimp among sharks.
Sotherton nicknames her affectionately Tadpole. "I?m always the smallest. When I walk out with the others I look up at them and wonder whether I should be in the same event. Especially when we?re doing high jump and their legs are up to here on me," said Ennis, indicating her chest.
Lack of inches is a serious disadvantage. Ennis is 5ft 5in tall, the smallest by almost 3in of the 15 entered today.
Statistics over the past 20 years show the optimum height is between 5ft 8in and 5ft 91⁄2in. Lewis was at the shorter end, Kluft at the taller end but nobody who has won a global title has been Ennis?s size.
Dick explained: "She is an exceptional athlete but clearly this is an issue. Her problem starts in the hurdles and becomes critical in high jump and throws."
Ironically, Ennis?s English mother is 5ft 11in, her Jamaican father 6ft 11⁄2in. "My younger sister towers over me. I?ve given up hoping I?ll grow. I?m going to have to live with it," she said.
"Yes, of course I know my size is a factor. In the throws my release height is so much lower and that?s a big disadvantage. I just have to compensate with speed."
Remarkably, she has overcome her size to high jump 1.91, 14 centimetres over her own height and higher than Lewis or Sotherton have achieved.
"Exceptional, really exceptional," said Dick. "But where?s the room for improvement?"
Ennis believes it can come in improved technique, timing and speed, and she hopes that will happen when she can put away her psychology text books after her university finals in June and double the number of her training sessions.
It will help, too, that UK Athletics has given full-time employment to her coach Toni Minichiello and relieved him of working in a Jobcentre from nine to five.
"It was pretty frustrating only being able to work with him in the evenings," she said.
Sotherton?s best pentathlon score is 235 points shy of Kluft?s best but she still talks of a possible gold. "I have a chance," she said.
But if these indoor championships are to re-launch British athletics ? as those of 1977 did when an unknown Seb Coe won gold after the gold-less Montreal Games ? one of many factors in its young team is how much Ennis closes on the two of them. "I?d be very satisfied with a big PB," she said.
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