Katarina Johnson-Thompson goes for gold alone in Commonwealth Games
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Version 0 of 1. Katarina Johnson-Thompson is confident that 2014 will be her “breakthrough year” and says she will be disappointed if she does not win heptathlon gold at the Commonwealth Games next month. The 21-year-old was on Monday named in a 129-strong England athletics squad for the Games in Glasgow along with Mo Farah – who will double up in the 5,000m and 10,000m and is in “very good shape”, according to Peter Stanley, team leader – and Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford. And after beating many of the world’s best heptathletes in Gotzis this month Johnson-Thompson feels ready to crash into the mainstream. “I think this is a breakthrough year for me,” said Johnson-Thompson, who finished 15th in the heptathlon at London 2012 and fifth at the World Championships last year. “If I win my first senior international medal in the heptathlon I can take that into the World Championships in Beijing and then the 2016 Rio Olympics.” But Johnson-Thompson expects another battle royale with the Canadian Brianne Theisen Eaton, who won silver at the 2013 World Championships and this year’s World Indoor Championships and finished second to Johnson-Thompson in Gotzis. “Gotzis was pretty much the unofficial world championship,” said Johnson-Thompson. “We were one and two there and we are one and two in the world. It is going to be a brilliant competition and it would definitely be a disappointment not to win in Glasgow given I am going in on top. But Brianne is an amazing athlete.” The exciting 17-year-old heptathlete Morgan Lake, who recently broke the 6,000 points barrier for the first time, is also included in the England squad. However, there is no place for James Dasaolu, who ran 9.91sec for the 100 metres last year, or Chijindu Ujah, who ran 9.96 last week. Adam Gemili, world indoor champion Richard Kilty and Harry Aikines-Aryeetey – none of whom has broken 10 seconds – run for England in that event. But Stanley denied that the decision to ignore Dasaolu, who has not run since February but is rumoured to be flying in training, was a mistake. “We are looking at current form and James has not competed unfortunately, so it didn’t leave us much room to nominate him,” he said. Ujah was left out because his sub-10-second time came after the Team England deadline. “We were confronted by an early nomination period,” said Stanley. “It is a protracted period, it is just the way the admin works. We were just stuck with it.” To some that will be a case of bureaucracy gone mad, especially given the Commonwealth Games is still six weeks away, but at least Stanley was able to confirm the absence of Christine Ohuruogu from the individual 400m was her decision: the world champion will compete in only the 4x400m because she is taking it easy in 2014 to save her body for Beijing and Rio. |