Briton Jessica Ennis and American Bryan Clay won the multi-discipline events at the world indoors Saturday. Ennis, the reigning world heptathlon champion, racked up a total of 4,937 points over the one-day five-discipline pentathlon event. “It is very special to win here and break the championship record,” she said of her new mark, three points ahead of that set by Sweden's Carolina Kluft. She timed 8.04sec in the 60m hurdles, jumped a best of 1.90m in the high jump and 14.01m in the shot put, jumped a best of 6.44m in the long jump, and ran 2:12.55 in the 800m. The Briton finished ahead of Ukraine's Natallia Dobrynska (4851) with Russian Tatyana Chernova taking bronze a further 89 points adrift. Dobrynska, who complained of no sleep for two nights before the competition, said she was “satisfied” with the result. American Clay claimed gold in the men's heptathlon, the reigning Olympic decathlon champion racking up a total of 6,204 points to finish ahead of teammate and reigning world decathlon champion Trey Hardee (6,184). Russian Aleksey Drozdov took bronze a further 43 points adrift. “It was a tough competition,” admitted Clay. Clay timed 6.67sec in the 60m, jumped 7.27m in the long jump, recorded bests of 15.31m in the shot put and 2.06m in high jump, timed 8.00sec in the 60m hurdles, had a best of 5.00m in the pole vault, and ran the 1000m in 2:50.28 Ukraine's Oleksiy Kasyanov slipped to sixth after a disastrous pole vault, in which he managed a best of just 4.40m, but Drozdov, who was just a point adrift of Clay after the first day's events, moved into third. Ethiopian Meseret Defar won a record fourth consecutive women's world indoor 3,000m title. Defar, who won Olympic 5,000m gold at the Athens Games and a bronze in Beijing, clocked 8min 51.17sec. The Ethiopian, who also won world outdoor 5,000m gold in 2007, finished 0.68sec ahead of Kenyan world 5,000m champion Vivian Cheruiyot in silver. Defar's teammate Sentayehu Ejigu took bronze at 0.91sec. Australian Steve Hooker won the men's pole vault. The reigning Olympic and world outdoor champion cleared a championship record of 6.01m, also the leading vault of the season. German duo Malte Mohr and Alexander Straub took silver and bronze, with bests of 5.70 and 5.65m respectively. Dwain Chambers claimed his first global sprint title. Banned for doping for two years in 2003, he won the 60 meters with the year's fastest sprint time, an impressive 6.48 seconds. American Mike Rodgers took second in 6.53 with Antigua's Daniel Bailey third at 6.57. Another defending champion, Croatian Blanka Vlasic, won her second successful high jump title with a clearance of 2.00 meters. A powerful US team claimed four golds on the second-day of the three-day meeting. Defending champion Lolo Jones was perhaps the happiest, celebrating wildly after winning the women's 60 meters hurdles in a championship record 7.72 seconds. Only two women, Swedish world record holder Susanna Kallur and Russia's Ludmila Engquist, have run faster. The Americans went 1-2 in the heptathlon with shot put defender Christain Cantwell and women's 400 meters runner Debbie Dunn also winning. Cantwell took the shot put with a last-throw toss of 21.83 metres to overtake Andrei Mikhnevich of Belarus. Mikhnevich threw 21.68. Dunn clocked 51.04 seconds for her 400 meters.
