By Jonathan McEvoy

PUBLISHED: 06:55 EST, 9 March 2012 | UPDATED: 15:49 EST, 9 March 2012

The agony was slow to dawn on Jessica Ennis. She celebrated as the screen flashed her name up with the numeral 1 next to it and, then, as the maths was slowly, agonisingly calculated her position was brought up to date and she was declared second.

A joyous smile gave way fleetingly to disappointment. But, ever the professional and positive by nature, she gathered her composure in a flash and the grin returned.

It had been a typically brave performance from the poster girl of the London Olympics, but nothing like what had been billed ahead of the World Indoor Championships pentathlon.

Contrasting emotions: Jessica Ennis thinks she's won... but the scoreboard is then reversed (below)

This was meant to be a showdown between Ennis, the smiling little brunette and the stern statuesque Russian, Tatyana Chernova. But Chernova faded almost from the start. She finished fifth, a shadow of the woman who won the gold medal ahead of Ennis at the World Championships in Daegu last summer.

No, it was the Ukrainian Natallia Dobrynska, the 2008 Olympic champion, who pipped Ennis with an indoor world record of 5,013. Ennis scored 4,965, a personal best and national record.

It came down to the last event the 800m and the facts and figures did not look propitious for Ennis going into it. She needed to run 6.48sec faster than Dobrynska to prevail.

Naturally, as at Daegu, Ennis gave it everything. She won the race stylishly but finished only a fraction over three seconds ahead of her rival. Enough to give her a personal best 2min 8.09sec and second place ahead of Austra Skujyte of Lithuania.

Read the original here:
Ennis settles for pentathlon silver in Istanbul (despite being told she'd won stunning gold)