Katarina Johnson-thompson: ‘ This is my big year’
The UK’S brightest athletics star Polly Dunbar unbar pain, comebacks and her best friend Jodie Comer…
katarina johnson-thompson has the husky voice of a woman with a lingering cold. ‘I’m sorry,’ says the heptathlete, folding her 6ft frame into a chair and reaching for a tissue. ‘I haven’t been able to get rid of it.’ When you’re the best all-round female athlete in the world, I’m guessing there’s no time for duvet days. ‘Yeah, training has to continue,’ she confirms.
WG’S rshahezonioa ti,t’s time for though, all hints that she’s under the weather vanish. Playfully flicking her ponytail, she’s a natural in front of the camera – all endless, powerful limbs and joyful confidence built by her spectacular success over the past 12 months.
She deserves to celebrate. For the 27-year-old Liverpudlian, 2019 was when years of ambition, gruelling work and often heartbreaking disappointment paid off. At October’s World Athletic Championships, in Doha, she delivered incredible performances in all seven heptathlon events, setting a British record and beating the reigning Olympic champion, Nafi Thiam of Belgium, to gold. Afterwards, she looked disbelieving and said the moment felt like ‘a dream’, proving she wasn’t just capable of superhuman feats, but was endearingly modest, too.
Among the many public messages of ckoinllginragtulations was one from
E avcetor Jodie Comer, who wrote on Instagram, ‘World Champion right there!!!!!!! We couldn’t be prouder of you Johnson-thompson. Your hard work and dedication shows no limits. Soak it all up. You’re the best… it’s actually official (always has been)! X.’ When the nation discovered the pair had been BFFS since school, a new bar was set for friendship goals.
Today, Katarina – or Katty, as Jodie calls her – is proud, but she’s also focused on what’s to come in July: Tokyo 2020. ‘For any athlete, the Olympics are what we’re working towards,’ she says. ‘The World Championships were amazing, but this is my big year. Winning in Doha has given me confidence, for sure; I know I can do it now.’
She is the first to admit it’s been a rocky road to get here since her Olympic debut, aged 19, at London 2012. ‘Nobody expected me to win,’ she says, ‘so there wasn’t a lot of pressure. But then the year after that, when Jess [Ennis-hill, the 2012 heptathlon champion] got pregnant, eyes fell on me. That made it really difficult.’
By the time of the Rio Olympics in 2016, the weight of expectation was immense, and she crumbled beneath it, finishing sixth. After a disastrous javelin throw, the cameras caught her having a ‘meltdown’ – cue a torrent of damning pieces from mostly male commentators about her inability to control her feelings. Did the response feel sexist? ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘ There are women who can compete and switch off their emotions, but if I’m doing really well or I’m doing really badly, I’ll show it. I can’t control my face; I wish I could. I’ll cry at pretty much abnryittahiinn’sg, G liokte Talent .’
After that last Olympics, she was in a dark place. ‘Things were going wrong in my body, and in the competitions,’ she says. Her father, who had lived in the Bahamas all her life, died of a heart attack. She considered quitting the sport altogether, until a saviour appeared in the form of former Olympic heptathlon champion Denise Lewis. ‘She saw how low I was, how little confidence I had,’ says Katarina. ‘She knew I was at one of those crossroads, so she wanted to make sure I made the right decision. She’s like my athletics mum.’
Katarina decided to make radical life changes, splitting up with her then boyfriend, hiring a new coach and leaving behind her two dachshunds and mum Tracey to move to Montpellier in France for training. A former dancer, Tracey brought her up as a single parent, pouring everything into ensuring her gifted daughter could pursue her dreams. ‘She wanted me to be a ballerina, but at 10 I said, “I’m not doing this any more, I hate it,”’ Katarina laughs. At St Julie’s Catholic High School in Liverpool she discovered athletics. ‘I started forcing my mum to take me to the track. She went from making me dancing costumes, which she loved, to standing outside in the rain.’ She must be incredibly proud? ‘ Yeah,’ she nods. ‘She loves athletics now.’
Katarina now spends most of the year in
Montpellier, which she admits is ‘a lot of sacrifice’, particularly as her boyfriend of two years, hurdler Andrew Pozzi, lives in Italy. ‘Sometimes, we go maybe a month at the most without seeing each other, but we make time for each other,’ she says. ‘We completely understand each other’s lifestyles and he’s a huge support to me.’
For the most part, she’s devoted to her goals, but when she takes time off at the end of the season, she insists she’s ‘totally normal’. She loves going for cocktails with her friends in Liverpool, including Jodie, when she’s not travelling for work. The pair keep in touch via a Whatsapp group called Hoes in Different Area Codes.
‘Jodie’s hugely supportive,’ she says. ‘She has always been like that. When we were growing up she understood that I couldn’t go out all the time because of training, and she always encouraged me.’ Watching her fkriiellnindg’s E pvheenomenal post
success has been a joy for Katarina, too. ‘It’s amazing watching her doing so well,’ she says. ‘She’s so talented and deserves it all. She hasn’t changed a bit. We have a similar sense of humour – silly – although she’s a lot funnier. She’s been brilliant at accents since we were young.’
Katarina’s a passionate karaoke singer and, like all true devotees, recognises that it’s not talent that counts, but the enthusiasm. ‘When people are good, it’s like, get out,’ she says. Her go-to track is Btootnanlie Tyler’s classic power ballad
E,colirpsie ‘ l Oikfetha hee Haveyarrtap, llbikoyeobuasttamreh k Nymowes.’
When she’s training, she lives in athleisure, spending just seconds in the morning sticking her hair in a ponytail and putting in her Acuvue contact lenses (‘My eyesight’s so bad: -7 and -5, so I can’t see anything without them.’). But when she goes out, she relishes making an effort. ‘I was such a tomboy when I was a kid, and I still love my Nike casual stuff, but at the same time, I’m from Liverpool, so I love doing the full glam, getting a curly blowdry, or a long weave done in my hair,’ she says. She’s worn Stella Mccartney, Burberry and Rixo to events but says, ‘I don’t really follow labels, I just love the clothes.’
The rest of the time, her regime involves training six days a week, usually for two hours a day, but for four on Mondays and Tuesdays. ‘At the moment, it’s a lot of hill runs, long-distance running, aerobic gym sessions – everything that’s horrible and painful,’ she says, smiling. Since being in France, she’s had fewer injuries and far greater success, particularly in the elements she finds toughest, shot put and javelin.
Between sessions, she has plenty of time to kill. ‘ When I first went there, I exhausted Netflix, but now I read a lot,’ she says. enjoyefleishmanrecently,she’sd Is In
Cbriyortuctbel aeffy Brodesser-akner and by Madeline Miller, and she loved Lemn Sm,ais yms aneym’as moieri osfwthhey poet’s time as a child in care in Wigan. Katarina dropped out of university after two weeks to focus on her career and says, ‘I’m enjoying educating myself a bit.’
She also took French lessons before having to give them up through lack of time. ‘I’ve been really trying to learn but I can’t get my head around it,’ she admits. ‘I know a lot of words but my brain doesn’t work fast enough when I’m in the moment.’
Last year, a spotlight was thrown on the discrimination faced by female athletes during pregnancy, when it emerged their sponsorships were being cut. She’s not thinking about having children yet, but applauds efforts by athletes, including six-time Olympic gold medallist Allyson Felix, to change the script. ‘She’s made huge changes in just a short space of time, so hopefully, by the time I’m ready for that, it will be different,’ she says.
In the meantime, this is the year she’s been working towards her entire life. She says she’s at peace with the struggles she’s experienced getting here ‘ because it’s important that people see it’s not easy. Everyone’s journey’s different and I’m proud of mine’. Until July, ‘I just need to keep the same energy and motivation, which I will,’ she says. ‘Just because I won the Worlds doesn’t mean I’m not hungry to win more. I’m excited by it.’
Katarina Johnson-thompson is an Acuvue® brand ambassador and wears Acuvue® Oasys 1-Day for Astigmatism Contact Lenses; acuvue.co.uk