Golden girl Ennis eyes X Factor (From Messenger Newspapers)

Golden girl Ennis eyes X Factor

2:42pm Monday 20th August 2012 in National Entertainment News © Press Association 2013

Gold medal-winning Olympian Jessica Ennis has said she would be happy to be a guest mentor on The X Factor.

She said she would "definitely" like to appear after it emerged show bosses are sounding out Team GB stars to appear on the programme.

However, she and some of her fellow medal-winning colleagues said they were yet to have any formal approaches about an appearance on the ITV1 talent show.

Show bosses are keen to acknowledge the UK's sporting success at London 2012 during the first live edition of the series and are said to have approached double gold winner Mo Farah for a role.

Cyclists Sir Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins, together with heptathlete Jessica, are among those who producers are aiming to get on the show.

But Sir Chris said today that it was the first he had heard of any such plans. In a message on Twitter, accompanied by the hashtag dontbelievethehype, he said: "Some amusing stories in press about me being a mentor on X-Factor. That's the first I've heard about it."

And men's time trial gold medallist Bradley was dismissive when asked about the programme.

However Jess was more amenable to the idea, even though she too said she received no approaches. Speaking on ITV1's Lorraine, she said: "This is definitely news to me but it sounds like a brilliant idea. I'm a massive fan of X Factor so we'll see."

A show source said the idea is for the medal heroes to give pep talks to contestants in the week leading up to the first live show, and they will also be invited to attend the heat.

For the programme the hopefuls will be performing songs with a sporting or winning theme such as Spandau Ballet's Gold, Survivor's Eye Of The Tiger and David Bowie's Heroes.