Jessica Ennis-Hill has Rio on the brain ahead of competitive return

Olympic heptathlon champion Ennis-Hill has not competed since the Anniversary Games in London in July 2013 and will return to the track after giving birth to her son, Reggie, in July last year.

The 29-year-old's first competitive outing will be in Manchester at the Great CityGames this summer where she will compete in the 100m hurdles.

Her first heptathlon will be at the Hypo Meeting at Gotzis in Austria on May 30-31, but Ennis-Hill admits her mind is already turning towards defending her Olympic title in Rio.

"I want to get back to competitive fitness, I want to come out of this season and my main aim is to qualify for the Olympics in Rio next year," Ennis-Hill told Sky Sports News HQ.

"We're coming up to the beginning of the summer season so I've been able to have some time off to have my son and just settle back into training.

"It's definitely been a challenge. I'm in a whole new world now, sorting out Reggie and early mornings and sleepless nights and then training and fitting everything around.

"The Manchester Great CityGames is a great opportunity for me to come out and get competitive again and just find that racing spirit and get over the hurdles and have a bit of fun."

In Ennis-Hill's absence, fellow Brit Katarina Johnson-Thompson has gone from strength-to-strength.

Johnson-Thompson topped the heptathlon world rankings last year and broke Ennis-Hill's British record in Prague in March.

"I think people are going to want to create a huge rivalry but she's a lovely girl and we both train extremely hard and love our events so it will be great to have a bit of rivalry and great competition, but just generally it will just be nice to compete alongside each other," Ennis-Hill added.

"She's having a fantastic couple of years. I've seen her competing, I've seen her producing PBs all over the show so she's been fantastic and it's great to see her doing so well."

© Sportsbeat 2015