London 2012 Olympics: Jessica Ennis leads by example at the heart of a very British success

Evening Standard

A few hours after Jessica Ennis made sure Super ¬Saturday will be forever ¬special in the nation’s sporting memory, I was asked in a BBC broadcast if this was London’s equivalent of the Cathy Freeman moment at Sydney 2000.

None of us present then can forget how the stadium gasped as Freeman lit the flame. And almost all of Australia seemed to find it difficult to watch as she ran in the 400metres. Like Ennis now, she was the odds-on favourite but Australians could not bear to think she might be beaten. On that rainy evening some even feared she might slip. But she won and you could almost feel the collective sigh of relief as the entire nation exhaled.