Over the past few weeks Katarina Johnson-Thompson has been repeatedly watching recordings of London 2012, allowing the memories to flood back in the hope they will assist her in winning a medal this time.
They show a 19-year-old completely at ease with making her senior debut before the biggest crowd she will probably ever experience, grinning as she joined Jessica Ennis-Hill’s lap of honour on that heady Super Saturday. She was already being proclaimed the next golden girl of athletics after breaking Ennis-Hill’s junior British heptathlon record a few months previously and a 15th-place finish at the Olympics only increased the expectation.
“I’ve been watching the old videos quite a lot,” she says. “That stadium is always going to hold a special place in my heart and it definitely brings back a lot of emotions. I feel like I’m fully prepared now. In 2012 I was just going along with the wind really. Now I can look back and feel like it is a special time. I’m fully prepared to try to make new memories in the stadium that I can cherish forever.”
The intervening five years have been as drama-filled as one of the soap operas Johnson-Thompson used to play bit parts in as a child who had a penchant for performing arts as well as sport. She won a European under-23 heptathlon title and a European indoor pentathlon title in 2015. But mental demons and physical frailties have hampered her performances on the big stage, most notably at the Beijing world championships two years ago when three fouls in the long jump ruined any medal aspirations. At the Rio Olympics last summer there was more heartache when she finished sixth, struggling – as she so often has – in the throwing disciplines. But, at 24, Johnson-Thompson feels like her time is now.
“In a way I feel I’m going into London with the worst things in my life having happened that can possibly happen in a sporting environment,” she says. “I feel like I’m prepared for almost anything. I can come out the other side and I can handle it, so I’m not working myself up as much as I did in previous years. I can go into it and relax, knowing that my events are up to standard and hopefully I can get the best performance out of myself.”
A move away from her long-time coach Mike Holmes to a new training base in Montpellier, close to France’s Mediterranean coast, has lightened her mood and improved her points score. Since last year Johnson-Thompson has been coached by a trio of Frenchmen, headed by Bertrand Valcin, and she counts the Olympic decathlon silver medallist Kévin Mayer and multiple European heptathlon champion Antoinette Nana Djimou among her training partners.
“It’s just given me a fresh outlook on everything,” she says. “I felt like it was time for a change and it’s definitely been the right move to mentally step away from everything in England and be without a care in the world in the south of France.
“I’m not taking anything away from my previous coach, he always got me on the line in decent form, but it was the preparation beforehand where my mind was on whether my body would be OK or whether I could deal with the pressure. I was scared to get injured. I’ve just been able to focus on technique now and just being the best I can be. I don’t have any responsibilities at all in France except to train.”
Unfortunately for Johnson-Thompson, she is not the only heptathlete in London who feels she is in the form of her life. Nafi Thiam, the Olympic champion, won gold in Götzis in May with a stunning score of 7,013, the best anywhere in the world for a decade. Germany’s Carolin Schäfer and Latvia’s Laura Ikauniece-Admidina kept Johnson-Thompson off the podium in Götzis, even with a personal best score of 6,691.
Johnson-Thompson acknowledges Thiam’s greatness but she is not writing off the possibility of winning gold.
“I wouldn’t say that she’s unbeatable,” she says. “I feel like you can never say that in a heptathlon or any type of sporting event because you never know what might happen – especially over seven events. If she performs the way she can it would be quite special to get two 7,000-point scores in one year, especially in the championships.”
She will also be drawing on the crowd she has been reminded of by those videos to inspire her to raise her game. “Naturally in the heptathlon I feel like my performances will go up another level and the British crowd can help me along,” she says. “I feel like the three girls who beat me in Götzis have taken heptathlon to this special place where anything goes. I’m going to try and latch on to that mentality and why not?”
