Jessica Ennis-Hill

Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill (born 28 January 1986) is a British retired track and field athlete from England, specialising in multi-eventing disciplines and 100 metres hurdles. As a competitor in heptathlon, she is the 2012 Olympic champion, a three-time world champion (2009, 2011, 2015), and the 2010 European champion. She is also the 2010 world indoor pentathlon champion. A member of the City of Sheffield & Dearne athletic club, she is a former British national record holder for the heptathlon. She is a former British record holder in the 100 metres hurdles, the high jump and the indoor pentathlon. Today, Ennis-Hill commentates for the BBC and runs Jennis, a fitness app specialising in women's health. Her latest product launch is CycleMapping, which helps women map their training to their menstrual cycles.

Early life and family

Born in Sheffield on 28 January 1986, Ennis-Hill is one of two daughters of Vinnie Ennis and Alison Powell. She has a younger sister, Carmel. Her father is a Jamaican self-employed painter and decorator, while her English mother is a social worker from Derbyshire. Her father did some sprinting at school, whilst her mother favoured the high jump.

They introduced her to athletics by taking her to a Start:Track event at the Don Valley Stadium during the 1996 school summer holidays. She won her first athletics prize, a pair of trainers. There she met Toni Minichiello, who was to become her coach.

Ennis-Hill took to the sport immediately and joined the City of Sheffield and Dearne Athletic Club the following year, aged 11."Parents' pride over Ennis victory"
''BBC News Online'', 17 August 2009. Retrieved 21 August 2009 In November 2000, aged 14, she won the Sheffield Federation for School Sports Whitham Award for the best performance by a Sheffield athlete at the National Schools Championships, where she won the high jump competition. Growing up in the Highfield area of Sheffield, Ennis attended Sharrow Primary School and King Ecgbert School in Dore, where she took her GCSEs and moved on to the sixth form, where she studied three A-Levels, before going on to study psychology at the University of Sheffield, graduating in 2007 with a 2:2.

Ennis's full-time coach throughout her career was UK Athletics national coach for combined events Antonio 'Toni' Minichiello, who coached her since she was eleven years old. She also received specialist javelin coaching from World Championships bronze medallist and European Championships silver medallist Mick Hill.

Junior competitions

Ennis took part in athletics from a young age. She competed in the high jump and pentathlon at the English Schools AAA Junior Girls in 1999, then won the AAA Girls title in the high jump the following year at the age of fourteen, clearing 1.70 metres. In 2001, she was runner-up at the high jump and heptathlon events in the English Schools AAA Intermediate section and won the high jump in 2002 with a jump of 1.80 metres. Ennis established herself as one of Britain's top junior athletes at the AAA U20 Championships in 2003 as she took the indoor pentathlon title and outdoor 100 m hurdles title.

Ennis competed at the 2003 World Youth Championships in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada in July, where after leading at the end of the first day she finished in fifth position with 5,311 points.

The following year Ennis competed in the 2004 World Junior Championships in Grosseto, Italy, where she finished eighth with 5,542 points, again after leading at the end of the first day. Ennis won two silver medals, in the 100 m hurdles and the high jump, at the 2004 Commonwealth Youth Games in Bendigo, Australia, held in November and December 2004, and won the heptathlon at the July 2005 European Athletics Junior Championships in Kaunas, Lithuania, with a British junior record score of 5,891 points.

Professional athletics career

One of Ennis's first victories as a senior came in February 2004, when she was eighteen years old. She won the 60 m hurdles at the Northern Senior Indoor Championships in a time of 8.60 seconds. Two weeks earlier she had won three Northern Junior Indoor Championship titles: the 60 m sprint, the 60 m hurdles and the high jump. Also in February Ennis finished third in the 60 m hurdles at the AAA Indoor Championships in Sheffield in a time of 8.43 seconds. At the July 2005 AAA Championships Ennis competed in the 100 m hurdles, in which she recorded a personal best time of 13.26 seconds, and the high jump.

Ennis's first senior international competition was the 2005 Universiade, held in August in İzmir, Turkey, where she won a bronze medal in the heptathlon with a new personal best of 5,910 points, behind winner Lyudmila Blonska and second-placed Simone Oberer.

2006: First senior competition medal

Ennis won a bronze medal for England at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia with a personal best score of 6,269 points, improving her previous best total by more than 350 points. Her high jump of 1.91 metres would have been enough to take the individual event gold medal. She achieved personal bests in the high jump, the 200 m and the javelin. Before the competition her aim was merely to score over 6,000 points. The competition was won by Kelly Sotherton with 6,396 points, with Kylie Wheeler second on 6,298 points.

At the AAA Championships in July Ennis competed in the 100 m hurdles, in which she recorded a personal best time of 13.19 seconds in the heats, and the high jump. In July, Ennis guided the Great Britain women's team to a fourth-place finish in the overall competition at the European Cup Combined Events Super League competition in Arles, France with a combined points total of 17,454. Ennis finished fourth in the individual standings with a points total of 6,170.

Later in 2006 Ennis improved her personal best with a score of 6,287 points when finishing eighth at the 2006 European Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden. Ennis produced personal bests in the shot put, the 200 m and the javelin. The medallists were Carolina Klüft (6,740 points), Karin Ruckstuhl (6,423 points) and Lilli Schwarzkopf (6,420 points).

2007: World Championships breakthrough

In January, Ennis set a new personal best of 8.24 seconds in the 60 m hurdles at the Loughborough indoor meeting, whilst in February, at the UK Indoor City Challenge Cup in Sheffield, she set personal bests of 7.43 seconds in the 60 m and 6.19 metres in the long jump.

Ennis finished sixth in the pentathlon at the European Indoor Championships, in Birmingham, improving her personal best score by more than 300 points to 4,716. In May she broke the British under-23 heptathlon record, set by Denise Lewis in 1994, by winning in Desenzano, Italy, with a score of 6,388 points. In doing so Ennis equalled the British high jump record of 1.95 metres and recorded personal bests in the 100 metres hurdles (13.12 seconds) and the long jump (6.40 metres).

At the European U-23 Championships in Debrecen, Hungary, in July, Ennis won a bronze medal in the 100 metres hurdles in a time of 13.09 seconds, behind winner Nevin Yanit and Christina Vukicevic. Later in July, Ennis beat Kelly Sotherton into second place in European Cup Combined Events Super League competition in Szczecin, Poland, scoring 6,399 points, a personal best, beating her own British under-23 record. Ennis also led GB women to first place in the team competition. She set two lifetime bests in the process in the 800 metres and the javelin. At the end of July Ennis won the 100 metres hurdles in a time of 13.25 seconds at the Norwich Union World Trials & AAA Championships.

In August Ennis finished fourth at the World Championships in Osaka, Japan, behind the winner Carolina Klüft, Lyudmyla Blonska and Kelly Sotherton, recording the fastest times in the three track events, including a personal best of 12.97 seconds in the 100 metres hurdles. Ennis finished second overall in the 2007 World Combined Events Challenge, a competition based on points accumulated at any three of the year's thirteen qualifying events, behind the Osaka silver-medallist, Lyudmyla Blonska."Sebrle and Blonska wrap up 2007 World Combined Events Challenge titles"
'' IAAF.org'', ''25 September 2007''; retrieved 21 August 2009 The following year Blonska was banned for life for her second career doping offence. In September, Ennis won the inaugural " European Athletics Rising Star" Award.

2008: Injury setback

In January, Ennis set new indoor personal bests of 8.18 seconds in the 60 metres hurdles and 6.33 metres in the long jump at the Norwich Union International Match at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow. At the Norwich Union Trials and UK Championships in Sheffield in early February, which she entered despite deciding not to compete in the World Indoor Championships in Valencia, Spain, Ennis finished third in the 60 metres hurdles in a time of 8.20 seconds and won the high jump with 1.92 metres.

Ennis withdrew from the heptathlon competition at the Hypo-Meeting in Götzis, Austria after the first day's events citing pain in her right foot. A scan later revealed the injury as stress fractures of the navicular and a metatarsal of the right foot. As a consequence she missed that year's Olympic Games in Beijing and the rest of the 2008 season.

2009: First world title

After a twelve-month lay-off due to injury, Ennis returned to competition at the World Combined Events Challenge in Desenzano del Garda in May, winning the event with a personal best score of 6,587 points, including an 800 metres personal best, also breaking Liliana Năstase's 16-year-old meeting record in the process. Ennis's foot injury meant she had to change her take-off leg in the long jump from right to left. At the UK Championships in Birmingham in July Ennis won the high jump and 100 metres hurdles.

In August, Ennis won the gold medal at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin with a personal best points total of 6,731, 238 points ahead of silver medallist Jennifer Oeser of Germany and Poland's Kamila Chudzik. She led the competition from the first event and posted a personal best of 14.14 metres in the shot put, whilst her first day points total of 4,124 points was the third-best first-day heptathlon score ever, behind world record holder Jackie Joyner-Kersee and European record holder Carolina Klüft. Ennis's World Championships points total of 6,731, 238 points was the highest heptathlon score in 2009.

Ennis was chosen as the "British Athlete of the Year" by the ''British Athletics Writers' Association (BAWA)'' and "Sportswoman of the Year" award by the Sports Journalists' Association. Ennis also came third in the 2009 BBC Sports Personality of the Year, behind Formula One world champion Jenson Button and winner Ryan Giggs of Manchester United. Sheffield City Council held a reception for Ennis in the city's Peace Gardens, at which she was presented with a Mulberry designer handbag and a canteen of Sheffield cutlery.

2010: World indoor title and European gold

In January 2010, Ennis captained the GB & NI team that won the Aviva International Match at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow. Ennis caused a surprise in winning the 60 metres hurdles in a British record time of 7.95 seconds, two hundredths of a second ahead of world indoor champion Lolo Jones.

Afterwards Jones, who hadn't lost in over two years in her event, expressed shock at being beaten by a multi-eventer, saying; "I'm looking forward to not letting heptathletes beat me when I'm only working on one thing. That's kind of crazy."
At the same meeting Ennis set a new indoor personal best in the high jump of 1.94 metres.

At the World Indoor Championships in Doha, Qatar, Ennis became the World Indoor Champion for the pentathlon with a new British, Commonwealth and Championship Record score of 4,937 points, finishing ahead of all three Beijing heptathlon medal winners, Nataliya Dobrynska, Hyleas Fountain and Tatyana Chernova. As a consequence Ennis became the first British woman to win world titles both indoors and outdoors.

At the end of May, Ennis returned to the 2010 Hypo-Meeting in Götzis, Austria, where she injured her ankle in 2008, winning the heptathlon with 6,689 points. At the Adidas Grand Prix Diamond League meeting in New York in Ennis set a personal best of 6.51 metres in the long jump.

Ennis won the heptathlon gold medal at the 2010 European Championships with a personal best and European Championship Record score of 6,823 points, eight points short of Denise Lewis's British and Commonwealth Records. Her European Championships points total of 6,823 proved to be the highest heptathlon score of 2010. She recorded a personal best in the javelin of 46.71 metres.

As in 2009, Ennis was named "British Athlete of the Year" by the ''BAWA'' and "Sportswoman of the Year" by the ''SJA''. She was also named "Outstanding Female Athlete" at the ''Commonwealth Sports Awards'', despite not competing in the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, won "The Best British Athletic Performance of 2010" at the ''UK Aviva Athletics Awards'', and was awarded the Dame Marea Hartman Award, given annually to the outstanding English female athlete of the year.

Ennis was nominated for a Laureus World Sports Award for Comeback of the Year after she came back from injury to become world champion in 2009 (winner Belgian tennis player Kim Clijsters), for the IAAF Female Athlete of the Year, and for "European Athlete of the Year", (both won by Croatian high jumper Blanka Vlasic). Ennis came third for the second year in succession in the '' BBC Sports Personality of the Year'', behind the winner, jump jockey Tony McCoy, and darts player Phil Taylor. She was also awarded a LittD Honorary Doctorate from the University of Sheffield for her contribution to sport.

2011: Second world title

In her first competition of 2011 at the Northern Athletics Senior Indoor Championships at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield in mid January Ennis set an indoor personal best of 14.11 metres in the shot put a record she improved by 50 centimetres a week later at an indoor meeting in Loughborough.

Later that month at the annual International in Glasgow, Ennis won the 60 metres hurdles in a time of 7.97 seconds, again beating Lolo Jones.

At the Indoor UK Trials and Championships in Sheffield Ennis pulled out of the high jump, and the rest of the meeting, after clearing 1.88 metres, citing "tightness" in her ankle. As a consequence she withdrew from the 2011 European Indoor Championships. The injury was diagnosed as inflammation of the plantaris muscle.

In May Ennis won the heptathlon at the Hypo-Meeting in Götzis, Austria, for the second consecutive year, recording 6,790 points, 101 more than in 2010 and 33 points below her personal best, beating Russia's Tatyana Chernova by 251 points. Ennis recorded personal best times in the 200 metres (23.11 seconds) and the 800 metres (2 minutes 8.46 seconds). It was a result that meant Ennis had extended her unbeaten record in multi-events competition to two years.

At the UK Trials and Championships at the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham Ennis competed in five events, equalling her outdoor personal best in the shot put (14.25 metres) and winning the high jump. Later at Loughborough Ennis recorded a personal best of 12.79 seconds in the 100 metres hurdles.

At the 2011 World Athletics Championships in Daegu, South Korea, Ennis originally finished second to Tatyana Chernova, who was disqualified for failing retrospective doping testing, with a score of 6,751 points, 129 points behind Chernova and 72 points below her own personal best of 6,823 points. Ennis beat Chernova in five of the seven events, Chernova scored 251 more points in the javelin (52.95 metres, compared with Ennis's best throw of 39.95 metres). Ennis registered personal bests of 14.67 metres in the shot put and 2 minutes 7.81 seconds in the 800 metres, whilst also equalling her best of 6.51 metres in the long jump. In 2016, this was upgraded to a Gold Medal by the Court of Arbitration for Sport after Chernova was stripped of her title.

Ennis was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours

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