KATARINA MISSES A CLASH WITH JESS

KATARINA JOHNSON-THOMPSON will have to wait a little longer for her hotly anticipated showdown with Jessica Ennis-Hill after she withdrew from the prestigious Hypo-Meeting in Gotzis, Austria later this month. Johnson-Thompson won the title in Gotzis last year, confirming herself as the world’s No 1, but she will not be there to defend her crown. A knee injury sustained after the European Indoor Championships in Prague in March — where she won gold and broke Ennis-Hill’s British pentathlon record — has delayed her training. Despite a creditable run over 200m hurdles in Saturday’s Great City Games in Manchester, 22-year-old Johnson-Thompson (below) and coach Mike Holmes have opted for a more forgiving start to the outdoor season. Holmes said: ‘Some good conditioning work has been possible, but it is only recently that Katarina has returned to relatively light track work, which was sufficient to enable her to compete on Saturday. However, much of the preparation necessary to compete effectively across all events for the heptathlon in the Gotzis Hypo-Meeting has been lost. It is now possible to start back and progress steadily to full training to catch up and prepare for later in the summer with the World Championships heptathlon in Beijing in August very much in mind.’ Ennis-Hill, who has started her comeback after the birth of son Reggie 10 months ago, is also a doubt for Gotzis. Her participation hinges on how she performs in the javelin and long jump in Sunday’s Loughborough International.