Katarina Johnson-Thompson will dare to dream after the best opening day of her heptathlon career.
The Briton ended day one on 4,138 points and 96 clear of Belgium’s defending World and Olympic champion Nafi Thiam. Her total also eclipsed her previous day-one score of 4,034 in Gotzis in May, where she set a personal best of 6,813.
It left the 26-year-old with aspirations of breaking Jessica Ennis-Hill’s British record of 6,955 and becoming only the fourth woman in history to pass the 7,000 barrier.
Asked if the gold was a realistic target, she said: “Why not? It’s something that I’m aiming to do, something that I’m
in shape to do and I’m in a very good position to do it.”
Johnson-Thompson has habitually had a weaker second day and looking ahead to today — she gets under way from 4.15pm with the long jump — she said: “I’ve worked very hard on my day two, so we’ll see what happens, but I’m not ruling [Thiam] out by any means. She’s got a very good long jump.”
