PARIS — Team GB’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson got her bid for women’s heptathlon gold off to a positive start on Thursday, sitting in first place at the end of the first day after four events were completed.
Johnson-Thompson, who is the reigning world champion, is looking to emulate Jessica Ennis-Hill, who won gold at London 2012 and silver at Rio 2016.
Belgium’s twice Olympic champion Nafissatou Thiam and American Anna Hall sit second and third in the standings, respectively.
It is Johnson-Thompson’s fourth Olympic Games, and she is still searching for her first medal although she arrives with her best chance yet.
Johnson-Thompson got off to a strong start in the first two events, recording her season’s best at 100-metre hurdles before going head-to-head in the high jump with gold-medal rival Thiam.
Thiam is a marginally better high jumper than Johnson-Thompson, but they both cleared 1.92 metres and could not go higher.
“The high jump, I have been wanting to get back into the 90s for a long time,” Johnson-Thompson said afterwards. “Since my Achilles rupture I haven’t jumped in the 90s, since 2019, so it’s a post-Achilles rupture PB.”
After two disappointing attempts in the shot put, Johnson-Thompson threw a personal best 14.44 metres for second place in the event. In the final event of the opening day, she ran 23.44 seconds to claim victory in the 200 metres.
“I don’t think that 200 probably looked like fun,” she said. “It’s all back to back, the timetable is quite short between the shot put and the 200 to actually get ready for it properly. I can’t complain on the day as a whole.”
However, Johnson-Thompson said she was disappointed not to go even faster in the 200 metres.
“I am in really good 200 shape so that’s really frustrating.,” she added. “I was aiming for as close to 23 seconds as possible but it’s heptathlon. You are very tired at the end of the day, I’ll take it.”
Johnson-Thompson made her Olympic debut as a 19-year-old at London 2012, finishing in 13th place. She improved to sixth overall at Rio 2016 amid a difficult spell in her career.
She achieved a breakthrough in 2019, becoming world champion for the first time in Doha, setting up expectations of a medal chance at Tokyo 2020, but she had to withdraw midway through the year-delayed Games with a calf injury.