LONDON – Turning the concluding 800 meters into a victorious ceremonial run for assembled royalty and 80,000 fans, Jessica Ennis won the heptathlon Saturday and ended two days and seven events crowned as Olympic champion. Turning an exceptional day into a Super Saturday for the host nation, Greg Rutherford won the long jump 20 minutes later. Running earlier in the morning, Oscar Pistorius took a giant stride into Olympic history just by starting in his 400 heat, becoming the first double-amputee runner to compete. He advanced to the semifinals. Ennis's two laps around the Olympic Stadium won her gold instead, meeting the expectations the host nation. It was no surprise Prince William and his wife, Kate, were there to cheer on. Ennis kicked off her campaign with the fastest 100-meter hurdles ever run in the heptathlon early Friday and never relented, building a lead so big that by the concluding 800, a stroll would almost have sufficed. Instead, she started out in front, briefly wavered, and to the roar of Britain fought back to win the last event and clinch a national record on top. Such was her domination that she took a pre-printed Union flag with “Jessica Ennis — London 2012 — Olympic Champion” to celebrate to the sound of David Bowie's “Heroes” blaring over the speakers. Well behind, the woman who was supposed to challenge her for two days, world champion Tatyana Chernova, took silver. Then came Rutherford. He rode the atmosphere of a vocal, capacity crowd to win his first medal in a major international meet with a best leap of 8.31 meters at London Olympic Park. Australia's Mitchell Watt took silver and Will Claye of the United States was third. Earlier in the action-packed program, Jamaicans Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake both cruised through to take the biggest duel of the London Games into the semifinals. Even if he coasted to victory in 10.09, the starting problems for defending champion Bolt were there for all to see again. Stuttering the first steps, he had to catch up four sprinters before he could relax and look left to see if he was clear for first place. “I made a bad step and stumbled a little bit,” Bolt explained. Nothing major, according to him. With none of the hoopla that accompanied Bolt's entry, world champion Blake just ran a typically strong race — out quick and easing at the finish — to beat Bolt's time and post 10.00. None of it, though, had the significance of Pistorius' opening race. In front of another full house for a qualifying session, the South African cut through the morning sunshine on his carbon-fiber blades to reach the semifinals with a second-place finish in his heat. “Today was just an unbelievable experience. I found myself smiling on the starting blocks, which is very rare,” Pistorius said. His time of 45.44 seconds was important enough, but didn't quite match the fanfare from the stadium announcer who marked the start of the race by proclaiming: “This is Blade Runner, Oscar Pistorius.” At first he had to fight the international athletics federation for the right to compete in able-bodied races and, since then, he has been facing critics who still say his artificial legs give him an unfair edge at the Olympics. “I've worked for six years ... to get my chance,” Pistorius said. Even if Pistorius is no threat for an individual medal in the 400, he could well get on the medal stand with the South African 4x400 relay squad next week. Beyond Pistorius, attention centered on defending champion LaShawn Merritt, who has been struggling with a sore left hamstring for two weeks. The American athlete was still full of nervous anticipation in the blocks but struggled as soon as the starting gun went off. Merritt quickly lost pace, was overtaken on the inside and slowed right down before eventually stepping off the track after 200 meters. The first medal of the day went to China, when Chen Ding won the men's 20-kilometer walk ahead of Erick Barrondo of Guatemala and compatriot Wang Zhen. It was supposed to be Russia's first gold in athletics with Valeriy Borchin favored to defend his title, but he collapsed with one kilometer to go and was taken away in an ambulance. Yelena Isinbayeva is still on course for Russia, easily qualifying for her pole vault final, seeking to become the first woman to win three straight individual Olympic gold medals in athletics. But while Isinbayeva easily cleared 4.55 to advance, world champion Fabiana Murer was out for failing to clear that height. Ethiopia's Tirunesh Dibaba and Tomasz Majewski of Poland both defended their Olympic titles Friday. Dibaba produced her devastating trademark kick 600m from the line to claim a convincing win in 30min 20.75sec over Kenyans Sally Kipyego (30:26.37) and world champion Vivian Cheruiyot (30:30.44). The 30-year-old threw a season's best of 21.89 meters to beat Germany's world champion David Storl by just three centimeters, with American Reese Hoffa taking bronze with 21.23m. — Reuters
