20 August 2023 , 22:12
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Golden girl Katarina Johnson-Thompson wiped away tears of joy as she hailed the 'best day of my life'.
Under a red-hot sun she had just reclaimed the world heptathlon title she first won in Doha four years ago. She sat on the track lovingly stroking the gold medal and tried to make sense of one of the great comeback stories in sport.
“I thought I’d fade into the background, be one of those athletes that is just there to make up the numbers,” she said. “That was the last thing I wanted. This is the best feeling, the best day of my life.”
At the age of 30 she reeled in hot favourite Anna Hall, making up a 93-point overnight deficit on the second of two days of lung-busting competition in extreme humidity.
She won the long jump with a leap of 6.54 metres, threw the javelin further than she had ever done before (46.14m) and then iced the cake with the fastest 800m of her life, clocking 2:05.63.
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“Incredible,” said Jess Ennis-Hill, the three-time world champion. “Just to know what she’s been through. The highs and lows, how gutsy is she!
Three-time world champion Jessica Ennis-Hill (Getty)"I remember talking to her after Rio (2016 Olympics) and she was on the brink of saying, ‘Do you know what, it’s not for me, it’s not going to work out for me in this event any more’.
“Look at her now. On top of the world.”
Here is an athlete who, between 2019 and 2022, did not finish a heptathlon, let alone win one as injuries and bad luck ganged up on her.
Glory in Doha should have been a springboard to Olympic success, only the pandemic robbed her of precious momentum.
It put back the Tokyo Games a year allowing a ruptured Achilles in her take-off leg to claim her point of difference.
Surgery left her with more than a three-inch scar. Undercooked in Japan she pushed her body so hard it broke again, this time a torn calf. How close it came to also breaking her spirit.
Have your say! Where does Katarina Johnson-Thompson's win rank in her career? Join the debate in the comments section.
Great Britain's Katarina Johnson-Thompson won gold in Budapest (Michael Steele/Getty Images)She changed coach, moving from France to Florida, and that didn’t work either. Yet coming home proved not to be an admission of defeat but a masterstroke.
With just the 800m to go last night she headed out past a video montage of past champions. She saw herself storming to victory in 2019. It lit a fire in her. The rest is history.
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Hall was nursing a calf injury and Olympic champion Nafi Thiam was absent. So Paris will be no gimme.
But KJT has laid down a golden marker, one which even Hall had to admit is ”super inspiring” for everyone. It is that alright.