Jessica Ennis voted British Olympic Athlete of the Year | 18.10.2012

Female European Athlete of the Year Jessica Ennis has been voted British Olympic Athlete of the Year for 2012 by athletics fans across the country, just beating her male continental counterpart Mo Farah, announced UK Athletics on Thursday.

Ennis secured 48 per cent of the vote, coming out ahead of the double London 2012 Olympic Games gold medallist Farah by four per cent.

After winning the pentathlon silver medal at the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul back in March, Ennis' crowning glory was triumphing in the heptathlon in London, to the delight of the 80,000 capacity crowd in the Olympic Stadium.

In her opening event in London, on the first morning of the athletics programme, Ennis flew to a 100m hurdles time of 12.54 - the fastest ever time in a heptathlon, a British record and also the fastest time by a European athlete this year - before extending her British record with a score of 6955 points.

Earlier in the year, Ennis was the first British woman to score over 6900 points when she won at the famous multi-events meeting in the Austrian town of Götzis with 6906 points.

"Thank you to all of the UK Athletics fans for voting me the British Olympic Athlete of the Year. What an honour! "The support of all the athletics fans is so important for us athletes and this year especially, your support at all the events running up to London was so important. What a great year 2012 has been," said the delighted Ennis after adding to her list of accolades from the last nine months.