Jessica Ennis was happy with her performance on day one of the UK Trials and Championships as she builds up to the defence of her world indoor pentathlon title next month. The 26-year-old started the day with well-deserved success in the high jump. She then threw 14.09m in the shot put, which placed her sixth, but still exceeded her target for the event.  “When you have someone there in a real clash, it makes you raise your game. It was a good competition”

“I’m really happy. It was my first high jump competition of the indoor season and it felt comfortable,” Ennis said. Competing on well-known territory at the two-day event held at the English Institute of Sport, where she trains in her home city of Sheffield, the previous outdoor world heptathlon champion cleared her initial three heights at the first attempt, but needed two attempts to clear both 1.85m and 1.87m.

She took three attempts to clear 1.89m and found herself trailing Emma Perkins, who set a new individual best when she cleared the same height first time. But Ennis then dug deep to clear 1.91m at the first attempt to seal success and equal her best jump of 2011. Ennis added: “It’s nice to start off jumping in the 90s because that’s what I need to do in the pentathlon or heptathlon, so it’s promising for the rest of the year.”

She also paid honor to Perkins’s performance, adding: “You always want to jump as high as you can for yourself, but when you have someone there in a real battle it makes you raise your game. “It was a good contest because it puts you under pressure when you have to clear heights at the third attempt. “You worry a bit, because you don’t want to go out at that height and I really wanted to jump in the 1.90s, but you have to get yourself together and re-focus.” Her 14.09m in the shot put was some way down on Ennis’s personal best of 14.67m, but she was happy after setting herself the target of throwing more than 14m.

The first match of the 2012 McCain Indoor City Challenge saw victory for the Sheffield Flames, with blistering performances different sharply with the snowy conditions hitting the UK. The match got happening with the women’s long jump at Sheffield’s English Institute of Sport today with a strong showing in the women’s long jump, where Katarina Johnson-Thompson opened Manchester Warrior’s Combined Events campaign with a new UK Junior Indoor Record of 6.39m. The rising heptathlete then went on to smash her shot put PB of 11.09m with a throw of 11.56 and later secured the combined events face victory with a second place finish in the 60mh.

“I wasn’t really expecting that in the long jump, normally I’m the first one out, but I just connected with the board and got big jumps today so I’m really happy with that,” she said.

“The PB in the shot put has been a long time coming really, I have worked on it more than any other event in the last three years, so I’m glad I got the PB in that too and hopefully I can carry it on to the outdoors. “It’s a great event to battle in, all the joint event athletes know each other and they are really nice girls. I can see why people get into it with the team names like ‘warriors’ and ‘dragons’.

But it was Sheffield Flames who took the first match victory with help from local-girl Jess Ennis who made her best season opener winning the 60mh finishing in 8.05 and producing 6.19m in the long jump to conclude in second place behind Abigail Irozuru who jumped 6.30m.

She said: “It is very local to me and easy to come along, obviously I train here all the time, so it’s a great opportunity to come and blow off the cobwebs at the beginning of the indoor season and just start quite locally.”

Meanwhile Isobel Pooley led the women’s high jump for London South Sharks and finished with a new PB of 1.88m and went on to attempt 1.92m – an Olympic B standard. “I am over the moon. It wasn’t a huge surprise to be truthful as training has been going so well and I’ve just gone to a new place with my run up and technique and I just felt so much more powerful now I am preparation with my new coach Fuzz Ahmed. He has worked miracles really and I knew if I got it right I could jump some big height today,” she said.