Domestically, her appeal is such that the words "heptathlete" and "tabloid fodder" can be safely used in the same sentence.
Heptathlete Sotherton was given a wildcard to contest the long jump but she finished last after only managing to land one legal jump of 5.85m.
In Sheffield, the home of gold medal-winning heptathlete Jessica Ennis, 60% of parents say their children do less than the stipulated two hours a week.
Heptathlete Kelly Sotherton, who is not representing England because of a back injury, told her Twitter followers said she was relieved not to be going.
South Yorkshire police said vandals had defaced winning heptathlete Jessica Ennis's gold postbox in Barkers Pool, Sheffield, on Monday night, by spraying it with graffiti saying "Go Jess".
The other athletes involved in the project are sprinters Darren Campbell and Jason Gardener, heptathlete Denise Lewis, Paralympian Sascha Kindred (swimming), Gail Emms (badminton) and Joe Glanfield (sailing).
World champion heptathlete Jessica Ennis has already confirmed she will miss this year's Games, while Olympic gold medal winning cyclist Victoria Pendleton has said she could also skip Delhi because of scheduling complications.
Champion rowers Pete Reed and Andy Hodge and sailors Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson pulled the covers off the clock, as 2012 chairman Seb Coe, London Mayor Boris Johnson and world champion heptathlete Jessica Ennis looked on.
Modestly claiming to be "not a bad 400m runner for a heptathlete", Sotherton is now focused on breaking her way into Team GB's relay squad for next year's World Championships in South Korea and the London Olympics a year after.
BBC: Sotherton eyes 400m after injuries end heptathlon hopes
Jessica Ennis, the victorious, mixed-race heptathlete, and Mo Farah, the long-distance champion and Muslim who arrived from Somalia as a child (and who prayed on the track after he won the 10, 000 metres) may have some therapeutic influence on attitudes to race and immigration.
Janey Cotton's recent and riveting book "The Austerity Olympics" describes a country and a sports culture that would seem primitive not only to Jessica Ennis, Britain's 2012 heptathlete hopeful, but also to Milo of Croton, who won six titles at consecutive Olympics in the sixth century BC.
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