Kat’s out to
IT WAS mid-afternoon on Saturday at the Olympic Stadium in London, the final long jump of the Muller Anniversary Games and the chance for the crowd to hail the British heptathlon star waiting to take her turn.
The rhythmic clapping grew in speed as she propelled herself along the runway, glided through the air and landed in the sandpit.
The distance – 6.60metres – was almost an irrelevance because by that stage, with the Olympic Games just three weeks away, victory had been secured.
But it was not Olympic champion, London darling Jessica Ennis-Hill being feted by the 40,000. This was Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s moment, and suddenly the mouth-watering prospect of the pair going head to head in Rio had just notched up a level or two.
A year after seeing her world championship heptathlon hopes disappear when she failed to land a successful long jump in Beijing as Ennis-Hill took gold, Johnson-Thompson is now ready for the challenge ahead in Brazil.
The ghosts of China had gone. Here, the woman known as KJT had nailed an important win so close to the championships that could change her life.
Her fourth-round jump of 6.84m had been enough for victory, with team-mate and world long jump silver medallist Shara Proctor in second with 6.80m and Ennis-Hill long gone, with 6.19m that brought her seventh.
But just how has JohnsonThompson, 23, coped with the pain of finishing 28th in Beijing, having scored no points for the long jump, to now looking ready to make a big challenge in Rio, after a weekend where she broke her high jump personal best in London on Friday