Glittering Gold Track Triple on Super Saturday

Jessica Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah dug deep for gold this evening in the brand new London Olympic stadium – and all three made winning look so easy.

Jessica Ennis, Team GB poster girl for the 2012 Olympics, completed her amazing heptathlon feat with a glorious 800 metre win when all she’d had to do was get round the track to claim gold, already being so far ahead of her Olympic rivals.  But for super-charged competitive Jessica, that wasn’t enough and she blazed to victory.  She has improved her national record to 6,955 points and won this Olympic event by a super 327 points from world champion Tatyana Chernova.

25-year-old Greg Rutherford leapt to victory in the long jump, with a winning jump of 8.31 metres coming just as Ennis was being introduced to the fans before the 800 metres.

Greg from Milton Keynes recently changed his final stride pattern to emulate that of four-times long jump champion, the legendary Carl Lewis – and it paid off in huge leaps and bounds in the stadium this evening.

“What a night for British athletics,” he said, “The crowd were absolutely incredible.”

Then Mo Farah blistered home in the 10,000 metres, running the last lap in only 53 seconds to win the first ever British gold medal in this event.

Galen Rupp, Mo’s US training partner, roared home in second place to collect the silver, congratulating Somalia-born Farah who rolled around the track in disbelief and delight.

It had been a super-star moment to see Mo kick away rapidly from the pack at the bell for the final lap.  He finished in 27 minutes 30.42 seconds ahead of Rupp who came in at 27 minutes 30.90 seconds.

World 5000 metre champion Mo said he had thought his 10000m race would not come down to the last lap as his rivals were afraid of his sprinting speed, but in the end that was exactly what happened and when Mo hit the front at the bell he finished to absolute perfection.

His 6 months pregnant wife Tanya and step-daughter Rihanna, ran onto the track with smiles and huge pride, much to the delight of the sports photographers.  And what a pretty picture they made too.

So at the end of Super Saturday, Team GB has won 14 gold medals, 7 silver and 8 bronze – already a tally way beyond what we’d achieved in Beijing by day 8.

Whatever next?

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Thanks so much for your visit to this post.  Happy Olympic Games – London 2012!