Johnson-thompson blows chance again
Heptathlete finishes fifth behind winner Thiam I don’t understand what happened, Briton admits
Katarina Johnson-thompson’s wait goes on. Three successive years a medal candidate, three successive years a disappointment. It begs the question: what will it take for her to make good on her abundant talent?
The problem at these World Championships yesterday was that the ship had long ago sailed. It was not even lunchtime on day one of the heptathlon when a nightmare high jump had put paid to her hopes of a podium place.
Two years ago in Beijing, it had been a horrifying long jump and last year in Rio it was the combined effect of two dismal throwing events. No discernible pattern, but the same result – forlorn look and an empty-handed departure.
All the upheaval of relocating her life from Liverpool to a training setup in France last winter for a fifthplace finish as Belgium’s Olympic champion Nafi Thiam ran off with the title. “I just don’t understand what happened,” Johnson-thompson said. “It’s just frustration, but I need to reassess. It’s getting there. I’ve said from the start of this year I’ve had a lot of change. It’s going to take a bit of getting used to, but I’m happy with the way things are progressing G 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 S 3 2 1 0 0 0 0 0
1 B 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 T 7 3 4 0 0 0 0 0 1 Carolin Schafer on 6,696 for silver and Anouk Vetter, of Holland, on 6,636 for bronze.
“What I take away more than anything is my change in attitude – that I’m able to bounce back and give it my all,” said Johnsonthompson. “In the past I’ve tried to bounce back from disappointment but have been kind of defeatist. I’m definitely going to be putting my scores in the score calculator and maybe a 1.90m high jump to see where that would have placed me. It will be a bit tortuous for me, but it’s something I’ll inevitably do.”
On a tough day, British hopes of hitting a target of six to eight medals suffered numerous other blows.
Callum Hawkins’ bold quest for Britain’s first World Championships medal in the men’s marathon fell short when he finished fourth. Hawkins had mixed emotions after finishing so close to the medals in 2hr 10min 17sec, with Kenya’s Geoffrey Kirui taking victory. “I was hoping to sneak a medal,” Hawkins said. “I was getting close near the end. I maybe left it a bit too late. But fourth is pretty good I guess.”
Holly Bradshaw was in floods of tears after missing out on a medal in the pole vault. She jumped 4.65m, the same height as the two athletes who shared bronze, but failed to join them on countback by virtue of greater failures. Greece’s Katerina Stefanidi won gold.
Andrew Pozzi considered his performance was “very poor” as he unexpectedly failed to make it through to the 110m hurdles final, crashing out at the semi-final stage with a time of 13.28sec.