Katarina Johnson-Thompson wants to win but now she’s chilling out on the road to glory

Golden girl | Katarina Johnson-Thompson added Commonwealth Games gold to her indoor world title
REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Daniel Omahony8 May 2018

Katarina Johnson-Thompson says she has “chilled out” after years of self-criticism - but is determined not to rest on the laurels of her Commonwealth Games triumph.

The heptathlete cruised to victory on the Gold Coast last month to claim her first major outdoor title, just weeks after winning gold at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Birmingham. She told the Standard she was delighted to be “finally getting medals” following a string of disappointing performances on the world stage.

“For me this is a huge achievement,” she said. “I can say I am the World Indoor champion, I’m the Commonwealth Games champion ... I feel like I’ve had the capability to do it but I’ve never done it before in the past, and I’m glad it’s changing around now.” After heartbreak at the Rio Olympics in 2016 where she finished sixth, Johnson-Thompson, 25, relocated to Montpellier to work with former multi-eventer Bertrand Valcin.

The Liverpool-born athlete credited the new training base for changing her self-punishing ways, revealing she no longer “feels like I need to crawl off the track to feel like I’ve done something”.

She added: “France has chilled me out. I don’t know what it is, but when things didn’t used to go well I used to take it home with me, and I used to sit up at night worrying about it.

“Now I do my training when I’m at the track, and I do the best I can do, and if it doesn’t work out I’ve tried my best and that’s all I can do. We still get the work done ... [but] I’m not killing my body.”

Johnson-Thompson insisted her competitive drive was as fierce as ever. But she is not focusing on the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 yet. “That is the ultimate, but it’s so far away that I can’t think about that right now. It gets too much,” she said.

She spoke to the Standard in Paris, where she was representing Müller alongside fellow GB athletes including sprinters Adam Gemili and Dina Asher-Smith. The dairy company’s ongoing partnership with British Athletics includes hosting the Müller Anniversary games at the London Olympic stadium in July.

The Müller Anniversary Games, London Olympic Stadium, July 21-22.

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