Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s heptathlon career has often resembled a wild big dipper, with incredible highs, heart-plunging lows and not a great deal else in between. But here at the prestigious HypoMeeting the full KJT experience was distilled into an extraordinary few hours.
It ended with Britain’s most talented athlete sitting in third place on 3,930 points, smiling while holding back the tears after posting her best opening-day score since winning the world title in 2019. But that barely tells the story of a day of crashes, injury fears, personal bests and, most of all, joyous optimism.
Johnson-Thompson first looked like she was going to cry after smashing into a barrier early in her opening event, the 100m hurdles, hurting her foot and ankle. Then she really did – twice – after her best high jump in four years and after a personal best in the shot put. For good measure, she then pushed her strapped-up body to the second-fastest 200m in the field.
“Why I am so emotional?” she mouthed to herself at one point. But, really, it was not so hard to understand. The 30-year-old has been a shadow of herself since suffering a career-threatening achilles rupture in 2020 and a torn calf muscle at the Tokyo Olympics eight months later. But she could finally sense herself climbing out of the abyss and finding her best self again.
“It’s the heptathlon and you never know what you are going to get,” she said. “That’s why I love it so much. I can see the path back now, so I am really happy.”
Ahead of Johnson-Thompson sits the 22-year-old world bronze medallist Anna Hall, who racked up a staggering 4,172 points on day one – higher than Jessica Ennis-Hill’s first-day score at London 2012. The world indoor silver medallist Adrianna Sulek is second on 3,936, while the 17-year-old Croatian wunderkind Jana Koscak is fourth after four huge personal bests.
But to British eyes this day was all about Johnson-Thompson’s stirring comeback. She had promised she was in much better shape after lacking fitness and motivation in 2022. But she was unable to show it in the first event as she nearly fell before tentatively coming home in 13.88sec. It was an awful start and it put her 22nd out of 27 place with 995 points – far behind the American Hall, who ran a meeting record 12.75 to score 1,162.
Johnson-Thompson could have barely looked more disconsolate as she trudged off the track, but the day was to dramatically change in the second event, the high jump.
Before her injuries she had a personal best of 1.98m and was genuinely world-class. Since then, however, she has typically jumped around 15cm below that. So there was genuine joy and a few tears when she cleared 1.89m on her final attempt – earning a well-deserved hug from her coach, Aston Moore.
“I started off the day so badly and given the whack I gave the hurdle I was lucky to stay on my feet,” she said. “I really badly hit my foot and ankle really badly and I was like ‘Oh no, not again’.
“I strapped it up and I just thought I’d do my high jump warm up to see what the case was. And then I did my best jump since 2019. I got so emotional because after my achilles rupture I never thought I would get those heights again. So I am really happy.”
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The high jump scored 1,093 points, and it pushed her up to fourth on 2,088 points. But next up was Johnson’s bête noire: the shot put. But on her first throw everything was in perfect sync. And, as 13.92m flashed on the scoreboard, she shook her head in disbelief at a personal best by six centimetres. “I thought a PB in the shot was coming but it still took me by surprise.”
That scored 789 points, and moved Johnson-Thompson up to 2,877, but she was not finished there as she ran the 200m in 23.26sec – with only Hall, who ran 22.88, going quicker.
There is still the long jump, javelin and 800m to go and bigger targets ahead with the World Championships this year and the Olympics next. But whisper it softly, KJT is back.
