Jessica Ennis-Hill and Katarina Johnson-Thompson set to compete in Beijing
Last Updated: 20/08/15 2:26pm
The heptathlon 100 metre hurdles will be the opening event at the World Athletics Championships at Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium on Saturday and there will be realistic medal hopes for Great Britain.
Jessica Ennis-Hill knows she will have her work cut out when she comes up against last year's world No 1 and fellow Brit Katarina Johnson-Thompson.
For Olympic champion Ennis-Hill, Beijing is part of her comeback after the birth of her son last year and she has come to China fully prepared to give her all.
"I fell that I'm happy with the last few weeks of training and how I obviously competed at the Anniversary Games (in London)," the 29-year-old from Sheffield told Sky Sports.
"I very much want to be here, be competitive and I really do want to contend for a medal and I'm going to give it my best shot."
Johnson-Thompson will head into the event as the favourite to take gold although she is staying grounded and keeping focused and trying to perform against her good friend in a test of skill, speed, power and endurance.
"This time it's pretty serious because there's a chance I can get a medal," said Johnson-Thompson. "It's a completely different dynamic, so I'm completely focused on this one. I'm trying to concentrate on performance. It's inevitable it going to be this way because as you get older you progress more and have a chance of a medal become better, so yeah, I'm growing up."
And on her showdown with Ennis-Hills, the 22-year-old from Liverpool said: "For me she's been there and done that. I obviously respect what she's done and she's a huge inspiration to me but it's only because we're coming into the same competition and we both want to win medals so it's crazy."
"I knew that the next few years post London was going to be a great time for her because she's extremely talented, she young and she's got time on her side" said Ennis-Hill. "Definitely not a surprise but the field of heptathlon is always strong."
