Gold for KJT and Muir on night of GB glory
ANOTHER gold disc for Katarina JohnsonThompson but no record for the collection. That she came so close to delivering both in the pentathlon at the European Indoors last night is a promising sign in World Championships year.
Of course, she was expected to win here in the absence through injury of the Olympic champion Nafi Thiam. But, on a night when Laura Muir won 3,000m gold and teenager Niamh Emerson took pentathlon silver, the manner of Johnson-Thompson’s win warrants attention.
Her score of 4,983 points was just 30 shy of Nataliya Dobrynska’s world record.
For three of the five rounds, she was just about on the right trajectory, with 8.27sec for the 60m hurdles, an excellent 1.96m in the high jump and a personal best of 13.15m in the shot put. But then came two fouls in the long jump and one scoring effort of 6.53m, which was the best in the field yet 40cms off her best.
With it the chance passed of moving from second to first on the all-time list — her personal best is 5,000 00 points — but that will subtract little from the achievement of winning three gold medals in the space of a year.
With World Indoor, Commonwealth Games and European Indoor titles in that period, and a close-run European heptathlon silver behind Thiam last year, it is reasonable to place her as Britain’s leading athlete on the approach to the worlds in Doha and Tokyo 2020.
Deserving of great credit is Emerson, the world junior champion and the latest off the British production line of female multi-eventers. Having taken bronze in the Commonwealths last year, the 19-yearold set personal bests in four disciplines. Her 4,731 tally was an Under 19s world record.
If Johnson-Thompson ranks as Britain’s top athlete, Muir is her closest contender, though the Scot’s events carry deeper talent pools.
Her race here, in defence of her 3,000m title and the first leg of her historic doubledouble bid, with the 1500m gold defence tomorrow, was a case in point. In Konstanze Klosterhalfen of Germany and the Nike Oregon Project, she was up against the 2019 world leader for the distance.
Their showdown was fascinating, with Muir a metre down before a brutal push at the start of the final lap, in which she broke her rival and surged to a championship record of 8min 30.61sec, almost four seconds clear. GB’s Melissa Courtney took bronze.
Meanwhile, Richard Kilty has revealed he suffered a huge financial hit in the wake of his farcical omission from the GB team — but believes he will seal a golden hat-trick today after a shock reprieve. The two-time European 60m gold medallist was left out of the team on February 17 after failing to meet the high qualifying mark set by British Athletics. That led to him being dropped by a sponsor, even though European Athletics then offered Kilty an invitation to defend his crown.
Kilty said: ‘I got an email saying they didn’t want to work with me anymore. That’s cost me a couple of grand a month. It would be amazing to win after all that and I believe I can.’