Coe and Britain revel in night to remember

London Games chairman Sebastian Coe hailed a golden night at the Olympic Stadium on Saturday as his country’s greatest for athletics.

Britain won three gold medals in one athletics session for the first time in Olympic history as Jessica Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah delighted a capacity crowd of 80,000 with three triumphs in the space of 45 minutes.

After three golds in rowing and cycling on ‘Super Saturday’, the host nation’s athletics stars got in on the action as poster girl Ennis won the heptathlon.

Rutherford then leapt to victory in the long jump, with what proved to be the 25-year-old’s winning leap of 8.31 metres coming at precisely the same time as Ennis was being introduced to the crowd before her final event, the 800m.

Farah rounded off an astonishing evening with a blistering last lap in the 10,000m, completing it in 53 seconds to take gold ahead of American training partner Galen Rupp.

Ennis had a commanding lead going into the 800m but still won her final race to improve her national record to 6,955 points and win by a commanding 327 points from world champion Tatyana Chernova.

“I can’t believe I’ve had the opportunity to come to my first Games in London and win an Olympic Gold medal. It’s unbelievable,” said Ennis.

“It’s a massive relief because it’s so hard getting through a heptathlon anyway, it’s such a tough event. But to have come into this event with all that pressure, and everyone just saying, ‘Oh, you’re going to win gold’, I just can’t believe I’ve done it.”

If Ennis’s win had been expected since she set a British record in the 100m hurdles on Friday morning, Rutherford’s came as a surprise even though he headed the world rankings in 2012.

Rutherford took the lead in the second round with a jump of 8.21m and was never headed, then jumping 8.31m in the fourth round to extend his lead. Australia’s Mitchell Watt (8.16m) took silver and American Will Claye (8.12m) bronze.

“That is the most amazing feeling in the world,” Rutherford said. “What a night for British athletics. Three gold medals out of a possible three really. The crowd were absolutely incredible. I don’t think it’s sunk in properly. This is what I’ve dreamt of my entire life.”

World 5,000m champion Farah had thought his race would not come down to the last lap as his rivals feared his sprinting speed, but in the end that was what happened and the Briton hit the front at the bell to time his finish to perfection.

The Somalia-born 29-year-old, who lives and trains in Oregon, collapsed to the track before being greeted by his seven-year-old stepdaughter Rihanna and wife Tania, who is expecting twins next month.

“I’ve never experienced something like this, it doesn’t come around that often and to have it on your doorstep with that amount of people supporting you and shouting your name....it’s never gonna get any better than this,” Farah said. “This is the best moment of my life. It’s something that I’ve worked so hard for. It’s just the grinding and hard work and 120 miles a week, week in, week out and long distance events and what you put into it is what you get out.”

Coe, chairman of the London Games organising committee and a two-time former 1500m track gold medallist, applauded Britain’s athletics heroes, saying: “I think we’ve witnessed something sensational.

“I’ve never known a night in UK athletics like that, it was unbelievable.”