ENNIS LAUGHS OFF 'FAT' SLUR
Former world heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis has laughed off reports a senior figure at UK Athletics has described her as fat ahead of this summer’s Olympics.
Ennis’s coach Toni Minichiello claimed that an unnamed “high-ranking person” within the governing body labelled the 26-year-old “fat and she’s got too much weight”.
Minichiello said the comments came amid perceived intrusion in Ennis’ preparation for the Olympics from “people in fairly high positions, who should know better”.
He admitted that people were trying to be helpful, but added in The Guardian: “I get e-mails, phone calls, text messages and voicemails giving me advice on what I should be doing with Jessica Ennis that’s going to make a difference. It’s a lot of background noise that you can get easily distracted by.
“I’ve never had any issue with her weight or shape. There are times I’ve wished she was taller, but that’s it.”
“I’m not going to go into that right now. It’s not an issue at all,” Ennis told reporters in Gotzis, where she will compete in her only full heptathlon before the London Games this weekend.
“It’s definitely a funny one, but it’s not an issue.”
While Minichiello was concerned about possible distractions as Ennis looks to bounce back from losing two world titles in the space of seven months, the Sheffield athlete added: “I don’t think so.
“I think I came into this year expecting different things to happen, different articles and things like that. So I think if you come into it expecting those kind of things then it’s not such a shock when you read things like that.
“I obviously see things. Things come up on Twitter and I read things. But I try not to focus too much on reading all the articles; just kind of get on with it, laugh it off really.
“It’s not something I worry out. It’s not something that’s stressing me at the moment so I can kind of just brush it off and ignore it really.”
UK Athletics declined to respond to Minichiello’s comments, which originated from an interview conducted in November last year.
Minichiello said it was “ludicrous” to describe Ennis as fat, but conceded his “defensive” attitude towards an athlete he has coached since she was 11 sometimes comes across the wrong way.
“I am an easily frustrated individual and my support of Jessica is huge really,” he said. “Having had a relationship since she was such a young age, my problem is I’m incredibly defensive of that and of her and sometimes when that comes out it comes out in the wrong way I think.
“I hope people understand my motivation behind it and understand it’s aimed to be for the best, but quite often it’s not perceived in that way.”
Asked if everyone was now pulling in the same direction, the 45-year-old added: “Yeah, I think we’ve got everything we need
at this point and this weekend will hopefully show that most of that’s come to fruition.
“(Biomechanist) Paul Brice is here so we’re going to pick up a lot of data from that and allow me to write the next 10 weeks of training into London to get that right.
“I’m a little bit nervous about putting pen to paper, it depends on what figures we come out with and how we move forward, but touch wood it’s all pretty good – which means I’ve probably jinxed the weekend now.”
Ennis will face the two women who have taken her world titles this weekend, with Russia’s Tatyana Chernova having triumphed in Daegu last year and Olympic champion Nataliya Dobrynska winning the pentathlon at the world indoors in Istanbul in March with a new world record.
Four years ago Ennis endured Olympic heartache when she suffered a double stress fracture in her right foot in Gotzis, ruling her out of Beijing, but since returning to the small Austrian town in 2010 she has won the event twice in succession.
Article source: http://www.sportinglife.com/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=others/12/05/25/manual_084135.html
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Biomechanist Paul Brice, Jessica Ennis, Nataliya Dobrynska, Russia Tatyana Chernova