Jessica Ennis forced to pull out of Grand Prix

WORLD heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis has withdrawn from tomorrow's Aviva Grand Prix in Birmingham due to her foot injury.

Ennis, who also missed the World Indoor Championship trials in her home city of Sheffield last weekend, wants more time for the injury to heal completely. She still plans to compete in the World Indoors in Doha, in three weeks' time.

Ennis, 24, said: "The scans a week ago showed a slight ligament sprain and the advice was to rest the foot and take it day by day. New scans of my foot today show it has healed a lot, but with the World Indoors only a few weeks away the advice from the UKA (UK Athletics] medical team is to give it a little more time to completely heal and focus on the World Indoors."

While Ennis will be absent in Birmingham, Phillips Idowu is aiming to jump-start his season in front of his adopted home crowd.

Idowu has struggled to reproduce the form which brought him World Championship glory in Berlin last August, finishing fourth in Stockholm and fifth in Gothenburg so far this season.

But the 31-year-old is not too concerned about his sluggish start to the season and, after relocating to Birmingham for training purposes, the Hackney-born star is looking forward to competing on home soil this weekend.

"It's what you expect from the indoor season," said Idowu when asked about his form. "The raised platforms I've been competing on aren't conducive to my style.

"I have just gone to the competitions to get some decent competition in.

"But I love competing at home and I'm just going to go and do what I do. I'm in good shape and am just going to take one jump at a time."