Jessica Ennis believes she can cope with being the face of London 2012 after her stunning heptathlon victory in the World Championships in Berlin.

The 23-year-old led from start to finish over the weekend at the Olympic Stadium, winning three of the seven events to set a new personal best of 6,731 points, but now expectations about Olympic gold are as high as ever.

When asked if she could handle the pressure, the Sheffield star said: "I think so.

"I think this weekend I've learnt that I had a lot of pressure and a lot of expectation from everyone and luckily I was able to control that and deliver and that's great practice for 2012. Hopefully I can do the same there."

Ennis missed out on the last Olympics in Beijing after suffering a triple stress fracture to her right foot and only returned to competition in May, setting a new PB and world-leading mark of 6,587 points.

That marked her out as one of Britain's best prospects for a medal in Berlin, but the Sheffield athlete admitted she was surprised to lead from the outset and by her winning margin of 238 points.

And a period of dominance last managed by Swedish star Carolina Kluft could even be on the cards.

"It would be good to dominate the event," admitted Ennis, who has pulled out of the individual 100m hurdles in Berlin after her efforts over the weekend.

"It's up and down every year, things change a lot, people come into the sport and leave the sport. But it's given me a lot of confidence, I feel in great shape, I just want to get back into training, keep training hard and try to stay injury free and hopefully I can get to 2012 and do a similar thing I did here.

"I did a PB in the shot and an overall PB, everything else was just solid performances. That shows I have the ability to push a little bit more out of each event. I know I can run faster in the hurdles and produce a little bit more from most of the events. Hopefully by the time it comes around to 2012 I can get a few more points out.

"Before this weekend the British record seemed so far away but now I've got a lot closer, 100 points away, and I think that's definitely within reach."

That British record belongs to Denise Lewis and was set in 2000 in Talence in France, where Ennis is next scheduled to compete in the heptathlon next month.

"Right now my legs are so heavy I can't imagine doing another heptathlon in a few week,s but we will see," Ennis added. "I've decided not to do the hurdles because I'm really tired.

"It was a really late finish last night and everything is aching today so I think the wise thing to do is to pull out and just enjoy the moment and relax a little bit.

"I got about three hours sleep last night. I feel really tired today but just can't stop smiling. I'm just in shock really. It's not really sunk in.

"Last year was so horrible but I knew that as soon as my injury started to heal I knew it was not going to be career threatening, I had to focus 100 per cent on the World Championships and my realistic aim was to come here and win a medal. I didn't think it would be a gold medal.

"I didn't for one minute imagine I would lead from the start to the finish or be ahead by that many points. Everything just went so well and came off. It's been such a nice year. Everything has gone really, really well."

Ennis was watched in the stadium by her boyfriend Andy, but her parents Alison and Vinnie were forced to watch back home in Sheffield.

Last year they lost thousands of pounds after buying travel packages to Beijing before Ennis got injured.

"I qualified and things were going really well and so my parents and grandparents booked a trip to go to the Olympics with flights and everything," Ennis explained. "Unfortunately my injury took place and they obviously didn't want to go and leave me at home by myself.

"They lost a lot of money trying to sell the tickets. They got a little bit of money back, but not a lot at all. It was a big shame but it's part of the sport and what happens.

"Everyone was really wary and cautious about not letting anything like that happen again, even though it's out of your control. I hope that my parents will come to a lot more championships and watch me win a lot more medals.

"They loved watching every minute of it and were very proud of me. As soon as I get home I can't wait to see my family, my parents and all my friends and I think we'll have a bit of a party."