Behind the scenes with Jessica Ennis
It is a cold, damp Monday morning at Sheffield's . The grandstands are deserted, the only spectator a burly chap in overalls and ear-protectors pushing a lawnmower up and down the infield. Grey clouds race overhead on the stiff breeze.
Sizzling hot feel an awful long way off. So do , and this in nothing like the in a few weeks' time.
But the European and world gold medals won by on those glamorous foreign shores are earned here, at the stadium where her heptathlon adventure began aged 11.
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Taken along by her parents to a kids scheme, Ennis won a pair of trainers for her efforts and was introduced to . Fourteen years on, the trainers have long gone but the relationship with Minichiello remains, and underpins everything she has achieved since.
I am at Don Valley to see how the pair work, and to understand how hard Ennis has to work in training.
I'm also here to figure out how someone can simultaneously be so self-effacing and friendly and yet so ferociously competitive, casually absorbing so much pain for such distant reward and capable of such extraordinary sporting feats when the world suddenly decides to watch.
The piece forms part of British Olympic Dreams, broadcast on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ1 and the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ News Channel this weekend.
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Comment number 1.
At 5th Aug 2011, bigsportblog wrote:You mention the humid conditions that the athletes will encounter in Daegu Tom, are you aware of any specific conditioning that Jess has done to cope with the conditions? As you said, cold damp mornings in Sheffield are rather different and competing over two days the heat and humidity are bound to take their toll.
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Comment number 2.
At 5th Aug 2011, peterkirk1 wrote:Tom did you tell (Blade) Jessica you were a Wednesdayite?
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Comment number 3.
At 10th Aug 2011, maint123 wrote:Tom do you think the current test matches between India and england should be relocated to a safer country and the london olympics be relocated to a safer European country like Germany or maybe an Asian country like India with a proven track record of holding PEACEFUL games .
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