I loved seeing Jess win in 2012... but now she’s in my way
THE ear-splitting roar from the Union flagwaving crowd took the teenager on the starting blocks aback. ‘Wow,’ she mouthed, a broad smile breaking across her face.
At London 2012, Katarina Johnson-Thompson was very much one for the future — or ‘under the radar’ as she described it at the time.
After her 15th-place finish, as she always does following a competition, Johnson-Thompson committed her thoughts to a private journal. She wrote about how it went, how she felt, how things could be improved.
Reading back those diary entries from the four years since should be all the motivation the 23-year-old heptathlete needs ahead of Rio. She is no longer the young prodigy, but one of the medal favourites.
‘I always have a book that I write during competition,’ she tells Sportsmail. ‘I need it with me, just to read back and reflect and look forward. If I’m feeling anxious, it helps me.
‘In 2012, I was over the moon to be there, especially as it was our home Olympics. It was a once-in-alifetime experience and I just wanted to take everything in.
‘The noise from the stadium sticks with me, it was like nothing I have ever heard. I loved every single second of it and I cherish the memories.
‘So much has happened to me since that it feels like a lifetime ago. I feel like a different person now, to be honest. This time it all feels different.
‘I am going to Rio with a chance of a medal. It’s serious now.’
Johnson-Thompson’s status as one of the favourites for gold was underlined at the Anniversary Games, where she leapt a personal outdoor best of 1.95m in the high jump and a season’s best of 6.84m in winning the long jump.
The latter finally exorcised the demons of the Beijing World Championships last year, when a failure to record a legal jump saw her slump from second place behind fellow Briton Jessica Ennis-Hill to an eventual 28th.
Heartbroken, the Liverpudlian tortured herself by making her laptop screensaver a picture of her spikes overstepping the line, drawing additional determination each time it popped up.
‘I looked at it every day but I had to take it down at Christmas time because it had become too traumatic to look at!’ she said. ‘I had to move on and look forward to what I can achieve this year.
‘The mental side of things gets better, stronger. I have learned a lot over the past year from everything I have been through and I’m in a good place.
‘This is an incredible chance to do well at an Olympics, to win a medal.’
Johnson-Thompson knows that in order to overcome favourite and defending champion Ennis-Hill in Rio, she will have to show consistency over all seven events.
The jumps appear to offer few problems now, the track events are solid, but Johnson-Thompson admits to being a little apprehensive about the javelin and shot put.
‘It’s not there yet, I’m not going to lie,’ she said. ‘I’ve got so many big gains to make in the javelin and the shot put.
‘I know I’m not going to be winning the field in those events but I need to do myself justice.’
The duel between Johnson-Thompson and Ennis-Hill, who won gold in Beijing, will be fascinating — and most likely decisive.
‘I was there when I was 19 and saw at first hand what she did in London — which was amazing,’ said Johnson-Thompson.
‘She has showed how good she is and how hard she will be to beat. That is the challenge and that is how it should be at the Olympics. Only your best can be good enough.
‘I don’t see Jess away from the track and we don’t send each other messages all the time or anything like that.
‘We will talk to each other at competitions but it is an individual sport and I don’t think there is any room for that closeness.
‘Right up to the line in the 800 metres, you are looking at finishing in front of one another. That’s how it has to be.’