July 26th, 2010
NZPA

Ayla Gill finished sixth in the hammer throw at the athletics world junior championships in Moncton, Canada yesterday.

Gill, 19, managed a best throw of 57.28m, nearly 10m short of British winner Sophie Hitchon's 66.01m. The throw nearly eclipsed the New Zealand 19-years age group record of 58.75m held by Olympic champion Valerie Vili.

Her performance completed an excellent championships for the Gill family, with

younger brother Jacko having claimed New Zealand's second gold medal at the event when he won the shot put. Both compete for the Takapuna athletic club.

Ayla Gill arrived at Moncton after a full NCAA season in the United States, throwing for Southern Methodist University.

"I came in ranked 24th and I finished sixth," she said. "I'm really happy with that, and I was close to my PB."

She opened with two fouls before throwing 56.57m and 57.28m.

Ayla said her brother's surprise victory added no extra pressure.

"My brother's a freak," she said. "There's no topping him. I'm so proud of him, he worked so hard for this."

Meanwhile, the New Zealand 4x400m team of Alex Jordan, Joseph Millar, Scott Burch, and Tama Toki finished third in their heat in three minutes 10.83s and missed a place in the final.

Jessica Ennis leads British athletics' hopes from Barcelona to London

The world heptathlon champion is targeting European gold, but knows the 2012 Olympic Games are creeping up on her

By Anna Kessel
The Observer
July 25^th, 2010

On Tuesday, with two years to go until the London Olympic Games, Britain's athletics team will step on to the Barcelona track – built for the 1992 Olympics, the scene of Linford Christie's and Sally Gunnell's gold medal wins – and compete in the European Championships. Meanwhile, in London, an old Olympic favourite – the 400m world record holder Michael Johnson – will step on to the new track at the Olympic stadium as the city moves one step closer to the 2012 Games.

For the British athletes focusing on winning medals in Spain, though, London 2012 remains a different planet. "It still feels quite far away," said Jessica Ennis, the world outdoor and indoor gold medallist in the heptathlon, and one of British athletics' biggest hopes for an Olympic title on home soil. "But yeah, less than two years – it's definitely creeping up on us."

Ennis has become something of a poster girl for the Games. Just as the head coach, Charles van Commenee, said he would be disappointed if the Sheffield star did not win European gold this week, when the heptathlon starts on Friday, so the hopes are riding on her shoulders for two years' time. Can she cope with the pressure of being the home favourite?

"I think so," said the 24‑year-old. "I'll obviously do bits with psychologists and do all I can to make sure that I'm in the right frame of mind when it comes round. But there's going to be a lot of pressure on all the British athletes, let alone myself, and it's two years away and people are going to keep performing. Other people will come through and the pressure might be spread among a number of athletes when we get there."

Ennis last visited the London site in January – "It looked amazing when I was there then ... It's quite exciting to see what it's going to look like when it's finished" – but is focusing on a competition that is more of a world championship than a localised event, with all of the world's best heptathletes, except America's Hyleas Fountain, competing.

Britain's other world champion, the triple jumper Phillips Idowu, is also looking for a first European medal and will have been boosted by the news that the former Olympic and world champion, Christian Olsson, has withdrawn from competition. However, the world indoor record holder, Teddy Tamgho, looks to have recovered from the injury scare that prevented him from competing at the Diamond League event in Paris 10 days ago, as the French star goes in search of his second major title of the year.

The British team are targeting 15 medals this week, a neat stepping stone to pave the way to 2012. But for one athlete hoping to win gold, Barcelona looks more like the end of the road. For 32‑year‑old Dwain Chambers, to whom the British Olympic Association issued a lifetime ban after his conviction for taking performance‑enhancing drugs in 2003, Barcelona could be his final European championships and his last shot at a major outdoor sprint medal.

"This may be the last," said Chambers, who holds the world and European indoor sprint titles. "So I'll just be focused on that and worry about next year when it occurs. Who knows what the future holds? I'm optimistic about next year's [world] championships as well." In reality, though, even at his best – his fastest time this season was 9.99sec, his first sub‑10 run in nine years – Chambers is too far away from the triple world record holder Usain Bolt to contemplate any major upset at an outdoor world-class event.

Had Van Commenee agreed to keep Chambers in the 4x100m relay, he would almost certainly have had a chance to win a world-class outdoor medal in that discipline, but being ineligible for the Olympic Games ruled him out of the Dutchman's thinking and so, on Wednesday evening, in the men's 100m final, Chambers may well face his final act.