Heptathlon star goes into World Champs in Eugene with modest recent form and a new coach but still feels she can challenge for medals

It’s fair to say things have not gone to plan for Katarina Johnson-Thompson since she won the world heptathlon title in Doha nearly three years ago. After taking gold with a British record score of 6981, she endured an injury-hit build-up to the Tokyo Olympics and ultimately failed to finish. This year she has stayed healthy but did not finish her pentathlon at the World Indoors in Belgrade and at the early-season combined events meeting in Gotzis she finished seventh with only 6174.

After splitting up with coach Bertrand Valcin after the Tokyo Games, she moved to the United States to be guided by Cyprus-born Petros Kyprianou. Yet things did not work out for her and she returned home recently to team up with Aston Moore. Moving back home to Liverpool has been good for her spirit, too, and she goes into the World Championships determined to enjoy herself and feeling minimal pressure.

Still, she would love to get on the podium. “I hope so,” she says, ahead of a heptathlon campaign that begins on Sunday (July 17), “that’s ultimately my goal. I don’t want to just go to compete, I do want to be in the medal hunt. I’ve done this for so many years now, I’ve always had doubts over whether the championship me is going to come out but that’s just natural as an athlete.

“I’ve been working so hard, this is the longest run I’ve had with no injury leading into a champs for as long as I can remember. All of these are good signs and I’m starting to get excited to compete and with the thought of Eugene instead of ‘oh, I’m running out of time!’ I feel like all these are good signs that I’m in a good place. As always, we’ll see, it’s sport, you never know. That’s where my head’s at right now.”

As she moves through her career, her strengths and weaknesses are changing. Aged 29, she has traditionally been strong in long and high jump and weaker in the throws, but she feels throws improve with age and maturity. Her long jump has also been problematic as her take-off leg was the same that she had an Achilles rupture on. This is also true for high jump but does not seem to have affected that particular event as badly.

The medal favourites in Eugene include Olympic champion Nafi Thiam and her Belgian team-mate and world indoor champion, Noor Vidts, plus Gotzis winner Anouk Vetter.

In 2018 she won the world indoor and Commonwealth titles in the spring before finishing a close runner-up to Thiam in the European Championships. Johnson-Thompson sees 2022 as being similar as there is a triple crown of medals to shoot for. The Commonwealth Games begins only a few days after the Worlds end too.

“Gold Coast was my first outdoor senior medal,” she says, looking back four years. “It was something that I set out to do at the start of the year.

“At the start of the year I set out my goal to get a medal at each, maybe gold in a couple. Getting my gold medal was definitely reassurance going forward that I can close off these heptathlons and I’m not someone who can’t win a medal. It was nice. Going into Berlin, where I got the silver medal, I’d pin that on the biggest confidence booster of my career because I was pushing the entire way.”

She feels an English medal sweep in the heptathlon in Birmingham is possible as well. Naturally she draws confidence from the large number of English heptathletes who have won Commonwealth titles and global medals like Jess Ennis-Hill, Kelly Sotherton and Denise Lewis.

“I feel like when you see it be done, you know it can be done,” she says. “I feel like when you can see a clear pathway of it being done, it gives you the confidence that it’s not out of reach. With the heptathlon and our history, there has to be something in that.

“Unfortunately, Niamh (Emerson) was on her way to qualifying and then hurt her hamstring. She would have been right up there too. It’s a tough team to get into. I hope that it is a clean sweep and the legacy continues for little girls in the crowd watching us.”

Johnson-Thompson wil be joined by Holly Mills and Jade O’Dowda. “They are really strong,” says Johnson-Thompson, “and Niamh I’m sure is going to be a problem next year.

“I feel both Holly and Jade have shown that they’ve got the points score to make it on the podium, but also the fight. Holly’s 800m in Gotzis was really impressive. She’s skipping out on Worlds to prioritise these Commonwealth Games so I expect her to get a good score under her belt.”