World Athletics Championships 2023: Katarina Johnson-Thompson reawakened and on medal hunt

Katarina Johnson-Thompson has won six large titles, winning her 2nd Commonwealth Games golden successful Birmingham past year

"I deliberation I bought into the information that it was implicit for me," says Katarina Johnson-Thompson.

First came the career-threatening Achilles rupture, 8 months retired from an Olympic Games postponed a twelvemonth by the pandemic.

"With an wounded that big, determination are whispers astir whether you tin travel backmost from that oregon ever beryllium the aforesaid again," Johnson-Thompson tells BBC Sport.

"It's 1 of the worst injuries I could person had, connected my take-off leg, erstwhile I thought I was gaining momentum and I was yet connected to thing aft winning the Worlds.

"Given my strengths successful heptathlon are the precocious leap and agelong jump, I felt I had mislaid my superpower - which is my spring."

Remarkably, with the assistance of her team, the Briton recovered successful clip for Tokyo.

Then came the sucker-punch.

In contention aft 3 events, a calf wounded sustained during the 200m ended Johnson-Thompson's medal aspirations.

Devastated and successful symptom arsenic she writhed connected the track, she refused aesculapian assistance, alternatively limping down the location consecutive and forcing herself implicit the decorativeness line.

"Covid, my Achilles wounded and past the wounded successful Tokyo were 3 large things which made it consciousness similar the beingness was telling maine to stop," says Johnson-Thompson.

"I was listening to it for sure.

"I've dealt with large losses successful the past, I've dealt with large injuries, but thing similar that."

Johnson-Thompson pulled up with wounded aft moving the crook successful the heptathlon 200m

It was little than 2 years since Johnson-Thompson had scored 6,981 points successful Doha to surpass Jessica Ennis-Hill's British record, overthrow reigning champion Nafi Thiam and extremity her hold for a archetypal planetary outdoor title.

A World Championships successful Eugene and a Commonwealth Games successful Birmingham offered accidental for different comeback past year.

But, initially, that was not a situation Johnson-Thompson was mentally prepared for.

"Last twelvemonth was a truly unusual clip for me," she says.

"When I look astatine immoderate of the footage, I can't truly adjacent retrieve it happening.

"I deliberation coasting done 2022 was protective. I didn't privation to perpetrate myself to thing conscionable to get my bosom breached again.

"I thought I could conscionable get by. Clearly, with the results I enactment out, I couldn't. It's not thing I'm arrogant of and I conscionable privation to hide that twelvemonth completely."

Crucially, earlier the commencement of a two-year artifact headlined by this summer's World Championships successful Budapest and the 2024 Olympics successful Paris, the Liverpool Harriers jock rediscovered her passionateness for the sport.

A disappointing eighth-place decorativeness astatine the Worlds successful mid-July past twelvemonth proved the catalyst; her spark reignited arsenic a location assemblage inspired her to the palmy defence of her Commonwealth rubric successful aboriginal August - and planetary golden for the archetypal clip successful 3 turbulent years.

"Being successful Eugene arsenic a spectator of the lawsuit was not thing I enjoyed," says Johnson-Thompson.

"It decidedly woke maine up and the Commonwealth Games brought backmost truthful galore bully memories of winning titles.

"Last twelvemonth wasn't me, I consciousness that successful my core. This twelvemonth I consciousness different."

Johnson-Thompson finished connected 6,377 points astatine the Commonwealth Games, 144 wide of Northern Ireland's Kate O'Connor

Desperate to beryllium she had shaken immoderate lingering consciousness of indifference, Johnson-Thompson admits having been frightened to unfastened her play earlier this year.

But she request not person been.

The Briton volition attack Budapest with quiescent optimism aft seeing "glimmers" of her aged aforesaid connected her heptathlon instrumentality astatine the Gotzis Hypo-Meeting successful May, placing 2nd to American Anna Hall.

Hall amassed the fifth-highest points full of each clip and volition commencement arsenic the favourite successful Budapest pursuing the injury-enforced withdrawal of defending champion Thiam.

Johnson-Thompson, with 6,556 points successful Gotzis, produced her champion full since her satellite title-winning performance.

Under the guidance of caller manager Aston Moore, she threw a changeable enactment idiosyncratic champion successful Austria and past jumped 6.60m successful the agelong leap astatine the London Diamond League successful July - 23cm further than her champion post-injury best.

"I would similar to get backmost to wherever I was," says Johnson-Thompson, whose satellite rubric bid begins with the 100m hurdles connected Saturday, 19 August.

"I don't privation to pursuit the aged maine but I privation to beryllium that I tin vie with the best.

"The heptathlon this twelvemonth is truthful beardown and it is going to instrumentality satellite people performances successful astatine slightest a mates of events to get the gold."

And portion making the podium successful Budapest is her contiguous aim, Johnson-Thompson says targeting a archetypal Olympic medal adjacent summertime remains the apical priority.

"I've ne'er won an Olympic medal," she says.

"That's thing that is successful the backmost of my caput for adjacent twelvemonth for sure, looking astatine the bigger picture.

"Obviously I privation a satellite medal - but everything I'm doing this year, adjacent the World Championships, is for Paris."