Thiam breaks 7000-points, Johnson-Thompson falls short despite PB

(Reuters) - Olympic champion Nafissatou Thiam recorded the third highest heptathlon points total of 7013 at the Hypo Meeting on Sunday, while Briton Katarina Johnson-Thompson missed out on the top three despite recording a personal best. Belgian Thiam became the fourth woman to break the 7000- point barrier, topping the competition record at the IAAF Combined Events Challenge meeting in Goetzis, Austria. Germany's Carolin Schaefer finished second on 6836 ahead of third-placed Latvian Laura Ikauniece-Admidina, who scored 6815. All three women scored more than Thiam's the gold-medal winning score of 6810 in the 2016 Rio Olympics. England's Johnson-Thompson ended with a personal best of 6691 points, the highest to not win a podium position, as she finished fourth, but the 24-year-old remains positive. "I know I'm in a good place where I'm not getting to my ceiling. I feel like my heptathlon is wide open to make those changes and I'm in a positive place," Johnson-Thompson told reporters. "I'm absolutely over the moon with everything I've done this weekend because I know it's a building block towards better things in the future. "I've only got one PB (personal best) this weekend so I feel very positive." Johnson-Thompson also said that she was hopeful of winning a medal in the near future. "My goal in the heptathlon has always been to score 7,000 points and I feel she (Thiam) is going to get me over the line because it will inspire and motivate me to go further and better," Johnson-Thompson said. "It's the highest fourth-place score ever so it gives me hope that a medal is within reach." (Reporting by Aditi Prakash in Bengaluru, editing by Pritha Sarkar)