New world champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson must still up her game for Olympic glory, according to her coach Aston Moore.
The 30-year-old grabbed a stunning heptathlon gold at the World Championships to cap her comeback after an injury nightmare.
An Achilles tear in December 2020 threatened her career while a calf injury at the Tokyo Olympics forced her to withdraw after the first day.
Sunday’s win in Budapest saw her regain the title she first won in 2019 after beating favourite Anna Hall.
Johnson-Thompson admitted pre-championships it could be her last heptathlon before next year’s Paris Olympics and Moore believes the biggest challenge is to come.
“Nafi Thiam (Olympic champion) isn’t here and you know Anna Hall is going to come back probably better than she has been right now, so Kat has still got to step her game up,” he said.
“But the thing is this is just one of the steps on that journey of coming back. It’s good that the comeback partially has brought about a world champion but we still have a fair way to go yet. She’ll be one of the favourites but let’s see what happens.
“This is Kat’s moment back to, let’s say, the top, where she’s hunting for something. She’s not a spectator.
“Last year she was in a really bad place for her, where she was just looking at other people picking up medals. This time she was actually hunting for one of those places. That changes your psyche.
“It’s been a tough journey for her. I think a lot of people probably thought it wasn’t possible for her to come back. But you never know what’s possible until you’ve actually done it.
“And you might as well believe it’s possible until you don’t do it. She’s actually proved a lot of people wrong.”
Johnson-Thompson beat Hall by just 20 points after running a personal best of two minutes 5.63 seconds in the 800m to ensure the American did not snatch gold.
She also threw a personal best of 46.14m in the javelin and Moore believes Johnson-Thompson’s quiet confidence was key.
He said: “I was almost in tears. It’s just a fantastic performance. Especially the way it was done.
“An athlete has belief about themselves but you never know what you can bring out of yourself until you’ve actually done it.
“For a while she’s had 2:05 in her head, thinking ‘I can do this, I can do this’ – and Anna Hall brought it out of her. We’re so happy about that.
“We knew that the job was possible. We just quietly got on with it without any fuss. This is the fruits of those labours.
“I’m a believer in getting to that zen moment and literally do. Process, process, process. Follow the process and you’ll get what you want.”
And Johnson-Thompson credits Moore’s gruelling 800m sessions for preparing her for victory.
“I love running fast and then having a load of the rest. But your weaknesses are something that you need to work on,” she said, after officially receiving her medal from World Athletics president Seb Coe on Monday.
“It was just a lot of aerobic stuff where you have a short rest and go again, short rest, go again, and that’s still the case. We were ready for that battle.
“I didn’t think I could run that time but I hate the feeling of not being ready to fight.
“I’ve had about six hours sleep over the last two days. I went to bed instantly but then I woke up, like, within an hour and I was just like ‘OK, this is me all night’. I was just awake. Just trying to make sense of it all.”
