Athletics: Javelin disaster costs Ennis her world title

Heptathlete Jessica Ennis, one of Great Britain's brightest hopes heading toward next year's Olympics, failed to defend her world championship in Daegu, South Korea after a terrible peformance in the javelin meant she had to be satisfied with a silver medal.

Ennis needed to beat Russia's Tatyana Chernova by at least nine seconds in the final event, the 800m, to overhaul the Russian, but even though Ennis ran a personal best of 2min 7.81sec, he only shaded Chernova by a second.

With 6,751 points, Ennis scored 20 more than when winning the title in Berlin two years ago, and even her personal best of 6,823 would have left her trailing Chernova, who finished with 6,880.

"I came here to win the gold medal, but unfortunately the javelin was a disaster," Ennis said. "If I had to do it anywhere, it's here because it's next year [at the Olympics] where I want gold. The javelin let me down, it's an event I'm normally okay at. I don't think it's going to happen often. I'll go away and work really hard at it and come back stronger next year."

Ennis started the second day strongly, equalling her personal best of 6.51m in the long jump, but the Russian outjumped her by 10cm.

Ennis's impressive opening had her on course to break Denise Lewis's 10-year-old British heptathlon record. But the javelin was a disaster.

Chernova put Ennis under huge pressure with a throw of 52.95m. Ennis would have had to have broken her own personal best in the event to hang on to her lead, but instead she produced her worst performance since the 2007 world championships in Osaka. Her best effort was 39.95m, almost seven metres short of what she is capable of.

"I'm a little bit on the stunned side at the moment," said Ennis's coach Tony Minichiello after the javelin, suggesting that she had slipped on a wet patch during the run-up on two of her throws.

"She should have done better in the javelin and she will know it. It went really well at the training camp in Ulsan. And I'm amazed you can come to a major championship and have a patch on the javelin runway."