Flying start by Ennis (From Bridgwater Mercury)

Flying start by Ennis

11:21am Friday 30th July 2010 in National Sport © Press Association 2011

Jessica Ennis made a flying start to her bid for heptathlon gold on the fourth day of the European Championships in Barcelona.

Ennis, who led from start to finish to win the world title in Berlin last year, is on course to do so again after clocking the fastest time in the first event, the 100m hurdles.

There were a few moments of concern after Tatiana Chernova and Linda Zublin were guilty of a false start in Ennis' heat, meaning any athlete committing another would be disqualified. However, Ennis - who would like to run the individual event in London 2012 as well as the heptathlon - held her nerve to easily win in 12.95 seconds, 0.10secs down on her season's best.

That gave the 24-year-old from Sheffield 1,132 points and already a 63-point lead over Germany's Jennifer Oeser who was second behind Ennis with a personal best of 13.37s.

Belgium's Sara Aerts was a point further back in third, with Olympic champion Nataliya Dobrynska down in sixth, 95 points behind Ennis.

The athletes then had around 45 minutes before the second of the heptathlon's seven events, the high jump, another of Ennis' strongest disciplines. Ennis is joint British record holder in the event with 1.95m.