Katarina Johnson-Thompson has suffered an Olympic injury scare after withdrawing from the European Athletics Championship with pain in her right leg.
Trailing in ninth place after a disappointing first three events of the heptathlon, the world champion opted against lining up for the 200m that concluded the opening day in Rome after feeling what was called “a niggle” in her right leg.
Johnson-Thompson’s Olympic dreams were destroyed by injury in Tokyo three years ago but she bounced back following achilles surgery to win her second world title last year and her season’s priority in Paris was cited in explaining his withdrawal.
“Kat has developed a small niggle in her right leg, and in light of the proximity of the Olympic Games we have chosen to bank what we have learned from this first day of competition and withdraw from the heptathlon,” said her coach Aston Moore.
“We don’t want to risk losing any time from training which could be the result if she was to carry competing with it for another day. We wish all the other competitors well for the rest of the competition.”
Although it is only seven weeks until the opening ceremony of the Olympics, Johnson-Thompson has almost nine weeks until the start of the women’s heptathlon.
Johnson-Thompson had earlier begun the European Championship on Friday with worse performances in each of the opening three events than she had managed in Budapest last year. It meant that she was trailing her big rival, the reigning Olympic champion Nafi Thiam, by more than 300 points going into the 200m.
Although Johnson-Thompson would have hoped to close that gap, which was largely built by Thiam’s outstanding high jump of 1.95m, she was already facing a considerable challenge to make the podium.
Thiam missed last year’s world championships but her form has so far been impressive in Rome, with her following up a relatively pedestrian 100m hurdles of 13.74sec with the best high jump of the competition. Johnson-Thompson, who had run 13.66sec in the 100m hurdles, went out of the high jump with a best clearance of 1.83m and could then only manage 12.44m in the shot put.
There was better news for British athletes in the women’s 1500m when Jemma Reekie, Georgia Bell and Katie Snowden all qualified for Sunday’s final. Bell had to survive a scare when another runner’s spike went right through one of her shoes but did not cause serious injury.
CJ Ujah, whose failed drugs test cost Great Britain an Olympic silver medal, also made a winning return to major international competition by winning his heat of the 100m in 10.23sec. He will run in the semi-finals and potentially also the final on Saturday.
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