Katarina Mary Johnson-Thompson (born 9 January 1993) is an English athlete primarily known as an elite multi-eventer, both as a

heptathlete A heptathlon is a track and field combined events contest made up of seven events. The name derives from the Greek επτά (hepta, meaning "seven") and ἄθλος (áthlos, or ἄθλον, áthlon, meaning "competition"). A competitor in a hept ...

and an indoor pentathlete. She has been World Champion in both disciplines, and a double Commonwealth Games champion in heptathlon for England. Representing Great Britain, she won the gold medal at the 2019 World Championships and broke the British record with a score of 6,981 points, which ranks her at No. 6 on the all-time heptathlon lists. She also holds the British record indoors of 5,000 points for the

women's pentathlon The pentathlon or women's pentathlon is a combined track and field event in which each woman competes in five separate events over one day (formerly two days). The distance or time for each event is converted to points via scoring tables, with t ...

and won gold in that event at the 2018 World Indoor Championships, as well as the 2015 and 2019 European Indoor Championships. She has also on occasion represented Great Britain in her two strongest multi-event disciplines, the individual high jump and long jump events. She holds the British high jump records with 1.98 m outdoors (2016) and 1.97 m indoors (2015), and in the

long jump The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a takeoff point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a ...

, she was the 2012 World Junior Champion and the 2014 World Indoor silver medalist. Johnson-Thompson's heptathlon results include finishing 14th at the

2012 London Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

, fifth at the 2013 World Championships, sixth at the

2016 Rio Olympics ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August 2016 , closing = 21 August 2016 , opened_by = Vice President Michel Temer , cauldron = Vanderlei Cordeiro de ...

, and fifth at the 2017 World Championships. She won the gold medal in the heptathlon at the 2018 Commonwealth Games before winning the silver medal at the

2018 European Championships The 2018 European Championships were the first edition of the European Championships. It was a multi-sport event which took place in Berlin, Germany, and Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom (with Edinburgh hosting the diving events and Gleneagles ...

with a personal best score of 6,759 points, which moved her into the world all-time Top 25. She retained her heptathlon gold medal at the

2022 Commonwealth Games The 2022 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Birmingham 2022, was an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth of Nations that took place in Birmingham, England bet ...

while recovering from Achilles tendon surgery. Johnson-Thompson's career coincided with those of older compatriot, Olympic champion and three-time World champion

Jessica Ennis-Hill Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill (born 28 January 1986) is a British retired track and field athlete from England, specialising in multi-eventing disciplines and 100 metres hurdles. As a competitor in heptathlon, she is the 2012 Olympic champion, ...

and double Olympic champion and erstwhile rival Nafi Thiam, with whom Johnson-Thompson has competed since junior competition. Johnson-Thompson is the only athlete to have defeated Thiam in global competition since Thiam won Olympic Gold in 2016, and with Ennis-Hill, Thiam and Carolina Kluft is one of only four heptathletes in this millennium to exceed 6900 points, and the only pentathlete to breach 5000 points in the same period.

Early life

Katarina Mary Johnson-Thompson was born in the

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

suburb of

Woolton Woolton (; ) is an affluent suburb of Liverpool, England. It is located southeast of the city and is bordered by Allerton, Gateacre, Halewood, and Hunt's Cross. At the 2011 Census, the population was 12,921. Overview Originally a standalone ...

on 9 January 1993, the daughter of Tracey Johnson and Ricardo Thompson (died November 2017). Her mother is a former dancer from Liverpool, while her father was a production assistant for

ZNS-TV ZNS (Zephyr Nassau Sunshine) is a national television broadcaster operated by the state-owned Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas (BCB). ZNS-TV's two transmitters, serving Nassau and Freeport, are the only over-the-air TV stations in the ...

the Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the ar ...

. She spent the first year of her life in Nassau with her father after her parents separated and then joined her mother in the town of

Halewood Halewood is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley in Merseyside, England. It lies near the city of Liverpool's southeastern boundary, bordered by the suburbs of Netherley, Hunt's Cross and Woolton. Historically a part of Lancashire, ...

near Liverpool, where she attended St Mark's Catholic Primary School and became interested in athletics. She later returned to Woolton, where she attended

St Julie's Catholic High School St. Julie's Catholic High School is a Roman Catholic secondary school for girls aged 11–18 located in Woolton, Liverpool. History The school is the amalgamation of several different institutions, most established by the Congregation of the S ...

and became close friends with future actress

Jodie Comer Jodie Marie Comer ( ; born 11 March 1993) is an English actress who rose to global prominence for her role as Oksana Astankova / Villanelle in the BBC America spy thriller '' Killing Eve'' (2018–2022). She has received various accolades in ...

, and went on to study sports science at Liverpool John Moores University.

Career

Youth career

Johnson-Thompson represents Liverpool Harriers and was formerly coached by Mike Holmes. Her development was in part funded by the

Wells Sports Foundation Barrie John Wells is an English financial services entrepreneur and businessperson, who has set up and sold two major insurance-related businesses in his career. In 2008, so inspired by the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Wells donated £2 milli ...

set up by Barrie Wells, which gave her access to the foundation's patron, Jessica Ennis (now Dame

). At the 2009 World Youth Championships in Athletics in

Brixen Brixen (, ; it, Bressanone ; lld, Porsenù or ) is a town in South Tyrol, northern Italy, located about north of Bolzano. Geography First mentioned in 901, Brixen is the third largest city and oldest town in the province, and the artistic an ...

, Italy, she won the gold medal in the heptathlon. She missed most of the 2010 athletics season suffering from patellar tendinopathy, also known as jumper's knee. Johnson-Thompson broke Jessica Ennis' British junior record at the

Multistars Multistars is an annual international Combined track and field events competition held in Lana, South Tyrol, Lana, Italy in late April or early May as part of the IAAF World Combined Events Challenge. Established in 1988 the meeting took place in ...

competition held in

Desenzano del Garda Desenzano del Garda ( lmo, label= Brescian, Dezensà) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Brescia, in Lombardy, Italy, on the southwestern shore of Lake Garda. It borders the communes of Castiglione delle Stiviere, Lonato, Padenghe sul ...

, Italy in May 2012. Her score of 6007 points was enough to take third position at the event behind Sofía Ifadídou of Greece and French athlete Blandine Maisonnier. The score also meant she had surpassed the 'B' qualifying standard for the 2012 Olympics, however it fell short of the 6,150 points 'A' standard. In June 2012 Johnson-Thompson achieved the 'A' qualifying standard for the 2012 Olympics by scoring a new personal best of 6,248 points at the TNT – Fortuna Meeting held in the Sletiště Stadium,

Kladno Kladno (; german: Kladen) is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 67,000 inhabitants. It is the largest city in the region and together with its adjacent suburban areas has a population of more than 110,000. ...

, Czech Republic. At the meeting she set six new personal bests across the seven events to beat her previous best score by 241 points. At the

2012 World Junior Championships in Athletics The 2012 World Junior Championships in Athletics was an international athletics competition for athletes qualifying as juniors (born 1993 or later) which was held at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, on 10–15 ...

held in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

, Johnson-Thompson chose not to compete in the full heptathlon competition to save herself for the Olympics; instead she took part in the

—winning a gold medal with a jump of 6.81 metres—and the

100 metres hurdles The 100 metres hurdles, or 100-meter hurdles, is a track and field event run mainly by women (the male counterpart is the 110 metres hurdles). For the race, ten hurdles of a height of are placed along a straight course of . The first hurdle is ...

. In early April 2012, alongside

Tiffany Porter Dr. Tiffany Adaeze Porter ( Ofili; born 13 November 1987) is a track and field athlete with joint British and American nationality who specialises in the 100 metres hurdles. She represented the United States as a junior, but began representing Gr ...

and Yamilé Aldama, she was nominated for "European Athlete of the Month" for March.

London Olympics and first World Championships

Johnson-Thompson competed for

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the

women's heptathlon A heptathlon is a track and field combined events contest made up of seven events. The name derives from the Greek επτά (hepta, meaning "seven") and ἄθλος (áthlos, or ἄθλον, áthlon, meaning "competition"). A competitor in a hept ...

alongside compatriots

Jessica Ennis Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill (born 28 January 1986) is a British retired track and field athlete from England, specialising in multi-eventing disciplines and 100 metres hurdles. As a competitor in heptathlon, she is the 2012 Olympic champion, ...

and

Louise Hazel Louise Victoria Hazel (born 6 October 1985) is an English track and field athlete from March, Cambridgeshire, who specialises in the multi-event heptathlon. She has competed in four major international championships. The first was in 2006 when ...

at the

Olympic Stadium ''Olympic Stadium'' is the name usually given to the main stadium of an Olympic Games. An Olympic stadium is the site of the opening and closing ceremonies. Many, though not all, of these venues actually contain the words ''Olympic Stadium'' as ...

on 3–4 August 2012. She finished in 13th place with a score of 6267. In September, Johnson-Thompson was nominated for the " European Athletics Rising Star award". In October, she won the "Lillian Board Memorial Award" (for junior women) at the 2012 ''British Athletics Writers' Association'' Awards. In the 2013 IAAF World Championships heptathlon, Johnson-Thompson finished in 5th place. After a first day which left her in 5th place, with a PB in the 200 m, she had an excellent second day with PB's in the Long Jump, Javelin and the 800 m. However, she admitted afterwards that she wished she had set her target of finishing in the Top 8 with more ambition, having finished just 28 points away from bronze medallist Dafne Schippers.

First World Indoor and European medals

On 11 July 2014, Johnson-Thompson set a new long jump personal best of 6.92 m at the Glasgow Diamond League meeting, taking her to number 2 on the British all-time list for the event. Johnson-Thompson won gold at the 2014 edition of the prestigious heptathlon Hypo-Meeting in Götzis with a world leading personal best score of 6682 but missed the Commonwealth Games and the European Championships after suffering a foot injury. Johnson-Thompson set a new British high jump record with a height of 1.97 metres at the British Indoor Championships in Sheffield on 14 February 2015, surpassing her previous record of 1.96 metres set on 8 February 2014. Prior to Johnson-Thompson, Debbie Marti's 1.95-metre jump had held the record since 1997. On 21 February 2015, Johnson-Thompson set a new indoor British long jump record with a distance of 6.93 m at the

Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix The Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix, formerly known as Aviva Indoor Grand Prix, is an annual indoor track and field competition which is held in mid-February at the Arena Birmingham in Birmingham, England. It is one of a handful of events to hold I ...

. In August 2015, Johnson-Thompson finished in 28th place in the heptathlon at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing after three foul jumps in the

. She had been lying in second place to

after the first day of events. Johnson-Thompson competed at the 2016 Hypo-Meeting in May of that year, her first major competition since undergoing knee surgery in the autumn of 2015: she finished the competition in sixth with a score of 6,304 points, securing her place at the 2016 Summer Olympics by beating the qualifying standard of 6,200 points. She missed out on a medal at the Games, taking sixth in the heptathlon, although her performance in the heptathlon high jump of 1.98 m set a new British high jump record, and would have been good enough to take gold in the stand-alone Olympic high jump competition. In September 2016,

UK Athletics UK Athletics (UKA) is the governing body for the sport of athletics in the United Kingdom. It is responsible for overseeing the governance of athletics events in the UK as well as athletes, their development, and athletics officials. The orga ...

confirmed that Johnson-Thompson had split with coach Mike Holmes, having been trained by him since 2008. She subsequently moved to Montpellier, France, to be coached by a team led by Bertrand Valcin, joining a training group including Olympic decathlon medalist

Kevin Mayer Kevin Mayer (, or , born 10 February 1992) is a French athlete. He is two-time world champion (2017, 2022), two-time Olympic silver medalist ( 2016 Rio de Janeiro and 2020 Tokyo) and world record holder in the decathlon. He is also a world and ...

and double European heptathlon champion Antoinette Nana Djimou. On 5–6 August 2017, Johnson-Thompson competed in the heptathlon at the

2017 World Championships in Athletics Seventeen or 17 may refer to: *17 (number), the natural number following 16 and preceding 18 * one of the years 17 BC, AD 17, 1917, 2017 Literature Magazines * ''Seventeen'' (American magazine), an American magazine * ''Seventeen'' (Japanese m ...

held in London. After moving to Montpellier, she was expected to land a podium position but was not able to surpass the 1.86 barrier in the heptathlon's high jump, with a successful jump at 1.80 m, which gave her 978 points. In a post heptathlon Day 1 interview, she stated: "High jump is one of my best events, I lost 200 points in just one event so that's massive. I'm massively disappointed but I'm trying to move on. In Day 2, long jump is one of my good events so hopefully I can do well there". Johnson-Thompson finished in 5th place with 6558 points. She also competed in the single high jump event, finishing fifth with a Season's Best jump at 1.95 m.

World and Commonwealth titles

Johnson-Thompson won the 2018 World indoor pentathlon title and the 2018 Commonwealth Games heptathlon titles, before going on to win a silver medal behind World and Olympic champion Nafi Thiam in the heptathlon at the

, recording a personal best score of 6759 points, to move into the world all-time Top 25. In May 2019, at the 45th Hypomeeting in Götzis, Johnson-Thompson recorded a new personal best of 6,813 in the Heptathlon, taking her up to 18th on the world all-time list. She won the heptathlon

2019 World Athletics Championships The 2019 IAAF World Athletics Championships () was the seventeenth edition of the biennial, global athletics competition organised by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), since renamed World Athletics. It was held betw ...

Doha Doha ( ar, الدوحة, ad-Dawḥa or ''ad-Dōḥa'') is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor, it is home to most of the count ...

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it ...

with a British record of 6981 points. She won the heptathlon at the

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Personal life

Johnson-Thompson moved to Montpellier in 2016, and currently splits her time between Montpellier and her home city of Liverpool. She is a lifelong fan of local team

Liverpool F.C. Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has p ...

She has been in a relationship with fellow athlete

Andrew Pozzi Andrew William Pozzi (born 15 May 1992) is a British hurdling athlete. He was the 2018 indoor World Champion at 60 metres hurdles. He was the 2012 UK 60m and 110m Champion and holds the record for the fastest ever time run by a UK junior hurdler ...

since 2018.

Statistics

Personal bests

;Outdoor personal bests ;Indoor personal bests *All information from Power of 10.

Seasonal bests

International competitions

Detailed heptathlon scores

National titles

British Athletics Championships The British Athletics Championships is the premier national championship in track and field held in the United Kingdom, and are organised by British Athletics. The event has doubled as the main trials meet for international team selection for ma ...

**Long jump:

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

British Indoor Athletics Championships The British Indoor Athletics Championships is the annual national championship in indoor track and field for the United Kingdom, organised by UK Athletics. Eight track and five field events for both men and women are contested, with athletes being i ...

**Long jump:

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the Unit ...

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

**High jump:

, 2015

References

External links

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson-Thompson, Katarina 1993 births Living people Sportspeople from Liverpool British heptathletes English heptathletes British female long jumpers British female high jumpers English female long jumpers English female high jumpers Olympic heptathletes Olympic athletes of Great Britain Athletes (track and field) at the 2012 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2016 Summer Olympics Commonwealth Games gold medallists for England Commonwealth Games gold medallists in athletics Athletes (track and field) at the 2018 Commonwealth Games World Athletics Championships athletes for Great Britain World Athletics Championships winners World Athletics Championships medalists World Athletics Indoor Championships winners World Youth Championships in Athletics winners European Athletics Indoor Championships winners British Athletics Championships winners British people of Bahamian descent Alumni of Liverpool John Moores University Commonwealth Games competitors for England Athletes (track and field) at the 2020 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2022 Commonwealth Games