News: Is Jessica Ennis Fat???

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Victory!

Jessica Ennis came away from the recent athletics meet in Austria as the most dominant heptathlete in the world today, beating Tatyana Chernova the current world title holder.  Jessica lost both the heptathlete and pentathlete world titles in the past seven months so her critics say she has a lot to prove.  

The events I will be most looking forward to at the London 2012 olympics will include the heptathalon (and decathalon) because of the need to dominate in so many abilities rather just being a specialist in one or two.

Here were her event times:

• 100m hurdles - 12.81s
• High jump 1.85m
• Shot put - 14.51m
• 200 metres 22.88s
• Long jump 6.51m
• Javelin - 47.11m
• 800 metres - 2:09m

Shocking:

The most fascinating news story in relation to her victory is the claim that a high-ranking UK athletics figure labelled her "fat and needing to lose some weight".  I am dismayed that a women in an athletic and healthy physical condition can be labelled as fat or overweight when she is seen as a role model to so many women who already struggle with body image issues.  Hopefully Jessica is strong enough to discount this background noise and not succumb to impossible and unhealthy images of a "supposed" ideal regardless of her performance on the track. 

She's not fat, she's an athlete.

What do these senior officials want her to look like - a size zero model?

Fit at 50 - Merlene Ottey

Merlene Ottey

Yesterday, Merlene Ottey made history being the oldest athlete to compete in the European Athletic Championships at 50 years old.  She now runs for Slovenia, rather than her native Jamaica - participating with athletes in their prime, less than half her age!

Her chosen role was running the final leg (anchor) of the 4x100m sprint relay.  An even more remarkable achievement given it is 30 years since she competed at the 1980 Moscow Olympics winning a bronze medal. 

She has clocked a 100m time of 11.50 seconds this year (a second slower than her personal best), looks fantastic at 50 and also wants to compete at the 2012 Olympics in London.  Although she is unlikely to be vying for medals in 2012 - I for one will be cheering her on.

"There are no limitations to age.  I'll always run.  It's the challenge that keeps me going" - Ottey

What an inspiration!