Runner's World (UK)

K ATARINA JOHNSON-THOMPSON

johnsontho­mpson johnsontho­mpson

-

Olympian, heptathlet­e, pentathlet­e, high jumper: Katarina Johnson-thompson once half-joked that she took up multi-sport competitio­n because she’s indecisive and she gets bored easily. These are perhaps character traits we can be grateful for because it makes for a varied look into the life and mind of one of Team GB’S most promising athletes. While KJT has yet to live up to her billing as the natural successor to Jessica Ennis-hill (she has two fifth spots and a 28th-place finish in her last three world championsh­ips, and she came sixth in the Rio Olympics), she’s happy to engage on social media with athletics fans and to frankly dissect her performanc­es – good and bad – as well as debating whether she should give up heptathlon and switch to the solo high-jump event (she jumped a British record of 1.98m in the heptathlon at the Rio Olympics, a height good enough to have taken gold in the individual event). She’s also quick to express her views on issues such as doping in track and field, flags up the performanc­es of lesser- known fellow athletes she feels the public should be aware of and posts videos offering insight into her life as an athlete, from training in the rain, the tedium of competitio­n travel or the trouble avoiding Game of Thrones spoilers when she’s on a training camp. Her two sausage dogs, Chorizo and Bronx, also feature and if there’s one thing we’ve noticed, it’s that you lot love pooches almost as much as running. In an age of carefully controlled media images, KJT’S what-you-see-is-whatyou-get approach is a breath of fresh air.

 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom