Jessica Ennis was involved in a tense battle to win the World Indoor Championships pentathlon gold medal on Saturday after three events of the competition in Doha.

Ennis - before the afternoon's long jump and 800 metres conclude the programme - held a narrow lead of 18 points ahead of Olympic heptathlon gold medallist Nataliya Dobrynska and a 72-point advantage over American Hyleas Fountain, who won silver in Beijing.

Ennis began her campaign by winning the the 60-metres hurdles in 8.04 seconds and then took the high jump with a clearance of 1.90 metres to establish a 75-point lead ahead of Fountain. Dobrynska threw 16.43m in the shot to temporarily replace the Sheffield athlete at the top of the standings but the 24-year-old rallied to produce a throw of 14.01m and restore her advantage.

Now everything hinges on the next event, the long jump, where on paper at least the Briton trails her rivals.

Ennis, though, is the strongest 800m runner in the field, three seconds quicker than Dobrynska and five quicker than Fountain.

UK champion Andrew Osagie was unlucky to lose out on a place in the 800 metres final when he was pipped on the line in his semi by Ahmed Ismail.

Sudan's Olympic silver medallist flung his body across the line to deny Osagie what would have been an unexpected place by just 0.04secs.

The British men's 4x400m relay team had a tense wait until hearing they had made Sunday's final as fastest losers.

They nearly came unstuck after resting Richard Buck and Dale Garland, who had competed in the individual 400m, but their time of 3mins 9.59secs saw them qualify narrowly.