Dobrynska trumps Ennis in world record style

Ukraine’s Natallia Dobrynska set a new world pentathlon record in a gripping first day’s entertainment at the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul yesterday.

The Olympic heptathlon champion notched up a total of 5,013 points to beat the previous world record best of 4,991 points set in 1992 by Russian Irina Belova.

Dobrynska ripped up the scripted duel between Britain’s defending champion Jessica Ennis and Russia’s world heptathlon champion Tatyana Chernova.

The Ukrainian timed 8.38sec in the 60m hurdles, jumped 1.84m in the high jump, managed bests of 16.51m in the shot put and 6.57m in the long jump, and clocked 2:11.15 in the 800m in a gruelling day of competition in Istanbul.

“I’m not surprised I broke the world record. I was confident I could do it here,” said Dobrynska.

Ennis claimed silver on 4,965 points with Lithuanian Austra Skujyte taking bronze (4,802).

“It’s the worst feeling in the world,” said Ennis. “There’s that disappointment because I wanted to come here and retain my title, but I had some good performances today.

“For a world record to win, it shows that the standard was extremely high.”

Ennis had led after three events but suffered a sloppy long jump, giving 38 valuable centimetres away to Dobrynska, who held her nerve to finish well within the 6sec advantage the Briton needed to claw back in the final event, the 800m.

The day’s other medal event saw Ryan Whiting of the United States win the men’s shot put with a best of 22.00m.

World outdoor champion David Storl of Germany took silver with 21.88m and Poland’s Tomaz Majewski bagged bronze (21.72m).

In heats, Australian world 100m hurdles champion Sally Pearson stormed through to the semi-finals of the 60m hurdles, timing a new Oceania record of 7.85sec.

“I’d like to get a medal but anything less than gold would be a disappointment,” said Pearson, current IAAF female athlete of the year.

Britain’s Dwain Chambers and American Justin Gatlin, who have served doping bans of two and four years respectively, both sailed through their heats in the men’s 60m.

Chambers, the defending champion, finds himself in the ironic position of being Britain’s best sprinter but unable for the moment to represent his country at the Olympics because of his doping-blighted past.

He clocked 6.65sec, a hundredth of a second slower than Gatlin, the 2004 Athens Olympic 100m champion also looking very comfortable.

Chambers said his focus was on defending his title and not Monday’s hearing when the British Olympic Association (BOA) will argue before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) that their bylaw, which bans convicted drugs cheats from competing in the Olympic Games, does not violate the World Anti-Doping Agency code.

But if CAS find the BOA’s bylaw to be non-compliant with the world anti-doping code, Chambers will be cleared to be selected for Team GB.

“At the moment, we’re just concentrating on the world championships,” Chambers said. “After a few beers, we might discuss this (Olympic issue)!”

In the 3,000m, Ethiopian Meseret Defar remained on track in her quest to become the first woman in history to land a fifth successive world indoor title, progressing easily through to tomorrow’s final.

There were also no problems for the main favourites for the men’s 3,000m, defending champion Bernard Lagat of the US advancing alongside Britain’s world outdoor 5,000m champion Mo Farah.

Kenya duo Edwin Soi and Augustine Choge also made the cut along with Ethiopians Yenew Alamirew and Dejen Gebremsekel, and Australian Craig Mottram.