COOL KAT EYES A HAPPIER TALE
After Olympic agony, KJT is hoping a reset can get her firing for Commonwealths and Worlds
LAST summer’s Tokyo Games holds few happy memories for Katarina Johnson-Thompson.
Only when Derek Redmond’s name is introduced into the conversation does she allow herself a smile.
“Funnily enough my mum said that if she’d been there she’d have done the same as Derek’s dad,” said Britain’s world champion heptathlete, whose gold medal hopes were crushed by injury mid-race.
“I absolutely know she would have.”
Johnson-Thompson was not even born when Redmond’s hamstring tore during his 400 metres semi-final at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
The image of dad Jim coming out of the crowd and on to the track to help his stricken son finish the race (right) is one of the most inspirational in sport.
“I wasn’t going to be beat by the Olympics,” Derek said later. “I could live with finishing eighth and getting knocked out but I couldn’t live with not finishing at all.” Almost 30 years on Johnson-Thompson’s calf tore coming off the bend in the 200m, her fourth of seven events.
She fell to the track and was quickly engulfed by grief at the loss of her dream.
With mum Tracy back home in Liverpool due to the pandemic and the stadium empty, she was all alone.
Two officials arrived with a wheelchair and good intentions but were given short shrift as she hauled herself up and limped to the line. “I would never have got in that chair and given people the chance to write that sad story about me,” said KJT, speaking at a Muller event.
“I did not want to give the world that image of me. Whatever it took I was going to finish.”
A change of seasons has brought a major shift in the life of the 28-year-old. Her body has mended, so too her spirit.
She is switching her base from France to Florida, where new coach Petros Kyprianou will prepare her to defend her World and Commonwealth titles this summer.
“I’m resetting and reevaluating,” she said. “In a way more calm than ever that I am able to achieve those dreams.
“I’ve already proved to myself that I am capable of doing it. I just need to get the work in now, show up and things will happen.” The fact that it was not her takeoff leg in which the rupture occurred but the other one gives her enormous heart.
“One of my values in life is that hard work pays off,” she said.
“It didn’t feel that way in the moment, after all I’d done to get to Tokyo. I was devastated not to get to finish it off.
“But I’m very proud of myself for getting there.
“It was perhaps the biggest achievement of all – a major positive.
“I gave it everything I had and don’t have any regrets. I’m happy and at peace with it.”
KJT is a Müllerlight Ambassador and member of the Müller Athletic Squad