Katarina Johnson-Thompson must ‘fall in love’ with heptathlon again at Götzis

Of all the ambitions that Katarina Johnson-Thompson has for her first heptathlon since her Rio Olympics finished in howls of pain and frustration, the simplest is also the biggest. She wants to fall in love with her sport again.

And she hopes that Götzis, the sleepy, scenic Austrian town where she smashed her personal best in 2014 before a series of injuries rammed her career off track, might just be the place to rediscover it.

“I don’t know if I am capable of a PB but I just want to put it together this weekend because it has been a tough couple of years,” she said, looking relaxed as she reclined on a bench at Stadion Mösle. “I just want to be here and be happy – and just try to fall in love with it again.”

The bar, for now at least, is set low. “I just want to get through it without any disasters. It has been a long time since I got through one. But I still love this place and it has got a place in my heart.”

The 24-year-old appears in fantastic shape, having rebooted her life by moving to Montpellier in France to join a new coaching team in December. Since then she has ripped up her approach to almost every event and started from scratch again. But she knows that this weekend’s prestigious HypoMeeting, where she will face the Olympic champion Nafissatou Thiam, provides the sternest test yet to KJT 2.0.

“I have changed a lot,” she said. “My high jump run-up, my long jump run-up, different shot put technique, completely different 800m training and way to approach it. So I have to compete but also try to change and adapt.”

But after a bone growth in her right knee blighted preparations for the 2015 world championships, and a groin problem did the same for the Olympics, she felt as if she had no choice. “My coaches have completely stripped things down. It is quite scary and does feel like a complete rebuild but I know I needed to change something.”

Johnson-Thompson is particularly pleased with the improvement in the shot put, so long her weakest link, but says the major difference is that she is no longer suffers with a constant torture of injuries, pangs and niggles. “What I’ve been pleased with is just being able to train week in and week out, almost every day, in the seven events,” she said.

Yet she concedes that she has struggled at times in France, both with the language and with being so far from her mum. “It is not easy. It is easy in that it is a nice culture, relaxed and chilled out, but it is hard for me to go over there and change everything.”

However, she feels that it has made her stronger as a person and an athlete. “I feel more independent too,” she said. “Before, my mum would book all my appointments, if I wanted to get my nails done I’d be like: ‘Mum, can you talk on the phone to this person’ – it was that bad. So I feel as like I’m growing up.”

Things have not gone entirely smoothly, however. She missed her flight from Montpellier to Paris Charles de Gaulle on Thursday because she set her alarm for 5am not 4.30am as she was supposed to and had to fly to Paris Orly instead and dash to get a shuttle bus to make the connecting flight to Austria. “It was drama but I’m OK,” she said, smiling.

She also knows that new routine has the approval of Thiam, who goes into this weekend as favourite. “Last year I changed things because in some events it wasn’t going well,” said the Belgian. “You sometimes have to take risks to grow and to take a step forward.” Johnson-Thompson, for one, will hope that those words prove prophetic.