Kelly Sotherton leaves Beijing in an upbeat mood

Kelly Sotherton leaves Beijing in an upbeat mood

Kelly Sotherton was strangely upbeat as she left the Bird's Nest Stadium, despite her failure to win a medal in the heptathlon.


She came fifth in a competition that she has always believed she could win and vowed to carry on for another year in the hope of landing the world title in Berlin.

The 31-year-old Sotherton, who won bronze at the last Games in Athens, did manage three personal bests, in the 100m hurdles, 200m and last night's 800m but lost valuable points with her very ordinary performances in the high and long jump, the shot-put and in the javelin, still her weakest discipline.

As the new champion, Nataliia Dobrynska of Ukraine, was being presented with her gold medal, won by just 33pts from her team-mate, the one-time drug cheat, Lyudmila Blonska, who took the silver, Sotherton said: "The long jump and the shot let me down. If I had done better in those I could have challenged for the silver medal, if not the gold."

But Sotherton will see this as a chance missed and Blonska's appearance on a medal podium for the second time in two years will not help her mood.

"I'm not happy that she competed again," said Sotherton. "We have rules in our country that mean we don't bring anybody who cheated previously so why should any other country?"

With one medal lost and still five to win to hit its target at these Games, UK Athletics will now look to Phillips Idowu in the triple jump, which starts tomorrow and Christine Ohuruogu and Nicola Sanders in the 400m.

Ohuruogu and Sanders cruised through to the semi-finals with assured performances yesterday.

Greg Rutherford carries the flag in the long jump final after qualifying with his first jump.

The final will be without Chris Tomlinson, however. Flown business class into Beijing at the end of last week after recovering from the calf injury he sustained at the London Grand Prix, Tomlinson managed only 7.70m.