Jessica Ennis-Hill launches bid for medal upgrade following rivals' doping ban

The heptathlete finish second to the now suspended Tatyana Chernova in the 2011 World Championships

Tatyana Chernova won gold in 2011 but failed a drugs test from 2009, when it was retested (Getty )

Jessica Ennis-Hill is seeking to get her World Championship silver medal in South Korea in 2011 upgraded to gold in the wake of the winner Tatyana Chernova’s doping ban.

The Olympic champion in the heptathlon has had talks with both the IAAF and British Athletics over the legality of Chernova’s current two-year suspension and her right to hold on to that world title.

In January, it was announced that Chernova, who also won bronze at London 2012, had tested positive for a banned steroid in a sample retested from the 2009 World Championships. As a result, she had two years’ worth of results annulled but not the period covering the 2011 World Championships in Daegu.

In addition, the Russian athlete was given a two-year ban backdated to 22 June 2013, meaning she is eligible to compete against Ennis-Hill and the rest of the world’s leading heptathletes at this year’s World Championships in Beijing in August.

Ennis-Hill makes no secret of the fact that she believes she is the deserving world champion from four years ago: “I definitely want that medal and we’ve had communications to see how that ban works.

“Obviously I’m not happy about how the ban has been handled. I can’t really understand it myself. I’ve spoken to British Athletics and the IAAF and I am putting my faith in them to look into it a bit more. I don’t know what is going to happen. I’ll just have to get on with what I’m doing.”

Asked whether she hoped they would revisit the legality of Chernova’s win, in which she beat Ennis-Hill to gold by 129 points with a winning total of 6,880 points, the Briton added: “I’m hoping so because I can’t understand how that is fair.

“It’s so frustrating although frustration isn’t a strong enough word because you train hard for all those years and then people do things like that. It doesn’t seem like she has served a ban.”

It is not the first time Ennis-Hill has potentially been denied a medal at a major championships by a drugs cheat. She finished fourth at her first World Championships in Osaka in 2007 behind silver medallist Lyudmyla Blonska, who later served a drugs ban but held on to that medal.

Ennis-Hill argued doping ban’s should span an athlete’s life and argued the use of steroids can “have an effect on your body for years, so it’s not fair”.

Despite her anger at the current position over Chernova, she conceded her defeat in Daegu became a springboard for her heroics in London 2012, when she was crowned Olympic champion on Super Saturday alongside Mo Farah and Greg Rutherford.

“It was the year before the Olympics and I felt really ready,” she said. “I just thought I could win the gold medal and I came away with the silver. So I was disappointed. I was thinking ‘is this how it will go into the Olympics?’

“So it gave me that extra push, in a way, having that silver. But at the same time I could have been world champion. It’s a weird one.”

Athletics chiefs face an on-going battle with doping, most recently with the German documentary which exposed an epidemic of doping among Russian athletes.

She admitted her surprise at those revelations but added: “I think we just need to be strict and really harsh and, if you are cheating, you’re out. I don’t think you should be allowed to come back and keep your medals. It doesn’t seem fair. But hopefully things are being done about it and it won’t keep progressing years on down the line.”