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| European and world heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis of Great Britain will be gunning for the pentathlon world record at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Paris next March. |
Great Britain’s multi-events star Jessica Ennis has said that she is likely to compete at next year’s European Athletics Indoor Championships, where the long-standing pentathlon world record will be in her sights.
The 2011 European Athletics Indoor Championships will be held in Paris between March 4-6.
Ennis won the pentathlon at the World Indoor Championships earlier this year with an British record score of 4937 points, just 54 shy of the world record set by Russia’s Irina Belova world record in 1992.
She is now the third best performer ever, behind only Belova and Sweden’s Carolina Klüft.
“I think that's a realistic goal,' Ennis told British media on Friday. “It was within reach in Doha (at the World Indoor Championships) this year so I hope if I've made improvements that I can get a bit closer, if not break it.”
A gold medal at the European Athletics Indoor Championships remains one of the few prizes in athletics that has eluded Ennis, who won the heptathlon at last summer’s World Championships and followed it up with another victory in the outdoor discipline at the 2010 European Athletics Championships in Barcelona.
“I would love to win every major title before I retire but it is hard. You win a couple of things and everyone expects you to win everything you do,” added the 2007 European Athletics Rising Star of the Year, the year of her one and only appearance at the European Athletics Indoor Championships, when she finished sixth in the pentathlon.
The 24 year-old from Sheffield revealed that in addition to meeting promoters, reality TV shows have been trying to get her to appear. However, in contrast to the former Olympic 100m champion and the three-time European Athletics Championships 100m gold medallist Linford Christie, who is currently appearing in the UK programme ‘I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!’ Ennis has no desire to head into the jungle.
“I'll never go on 'I'm a Celebrity'. Never, never, never. Linford has been doing great and it's been so funny to watch, but I'd never go in the jungle because I'm petrified of spiders and insects,” reflected Ennis.