Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s painful reality check on return to action

Katarina Johnson-Thompson suffered a painful reality check in her first heptathlon since tearing her calf at last year’s Olympics. She ended day one of the prestigious Hypomeeting with her knee badly bruised and her ambitions of defending her world title in July seriously blunted.

After four of the seven events, Johnson-Thompson sits in ninth place with 3,695 points – 245 off the lead held by the young Pole Adrianna Sulek, but broadly in line with her own expectations as she seeks to return to peak form.

“It hurts when you’re out here and the competitive juices come back,” she said. “It’s hard and frustrating that I’m not competitive but I’ve accepted that’s where I’m at right now.”

Related: Katarina Johnson-Thompson: ‘I still want to do it. I still love heptathlon’

The good news at least is that Johnson-Thompson showed no lingering signs of her calf injury that forced her to hobble off the track during the 200m in Tokyo or the serious ruptured achilles that threatened to end her career in 2020.

But when asked whether she could take any positives from the first day, she was admirably blunt. “You have to,” she said, smiling. “But you have to dig pretty deep for them.”

Johnson-Thompson’s first event, the 100m hurdles, offered an uneasy portent of what was to follow. The 29-year-old’s personal best put her the third-quickest in the 23-strong field, but she was slowly away and having hit three hurdles was last in her heat in 13.80sec for a score of 1,007 points.

That put her 13th and there was no solace to be found in the high jump. At her best, Johnson-Thompson is world-class and holds the British record with a leap of 1.98m. But after clearing 1.77m, she failed three times at a modest 1.80m for 914 points – although she appeared unlucky on her first and third attempts.

“My knee is black and blue because I hit about three hurdles, which is a shame because I felt like I was in good shape for that event,” she said.

“The high jump was similar because I felt like I was getting some spring back in this leg. I just don’t really understand what knocked it on my three attempts.”

As she walked over to the shot put she sought advice from the former Olympic champion Denise Lewis, but there was yet more frustration as she fouled in her first throw after appearing to be close to her PB and instead had to settle for 12.87m and 719 points.

But she finished the day on a high in the 200m, coming first in 23.51sec, gaining her 1,028 points.

“The shot put I was really unlucky,” she said. “I was close to my PB. My left leg spun around and I fouled in a freak accident and the last two I was a bit timid because I was scared of fouling again. So that was annoying but encouraging. It’s still a process. That’s where I’m at.

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“The last time I did the 200m was Tokyo and I still have reservations. I got out fast and then cruised the bend. Once I got past the bend I was fine and sprinted again.

“It’s just getting back into that sort of mentality, which is exactly why I needed to come here. It wasn’t in the plans at the start of the year but I’m being forced to qualify for Commonwealth Games. I have to come out here and put up a score.”

Another Briton, Holly Mills, ended the day in 10th place, four points behind Johnson-Thompson.

The performance of the day came in the men’s decathlon as Switzerland’s Simon Ehammer jumped an extraordinary 8.45m – a distance that would have won every individual Olympic long jump competition since 2004.

He leads the men’s event, ahead of the Tokyo 2020 champion, Damian Warner.