Katarina Johnson-Thompson fits the bill – and she excels at keepy-uppy too
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Version 0 of 1. Last summer Sports Illustrated asked a deceptively simple question with no straightforward answer: who is the fittest male athlete in the world? Then, shortly before Christmas, it repeated the question for women. Using a points system that ranked athletes out of 40 – with a maximum of 10 awarded separately for speed, strength, endurance and agility – it judged the NBA star LeBron James as the fittest male, with Cristiano Ronaldo second and Usain Bolt third. Meanwhile the US sprinter Allyson Felix was ranked fittest woman, ahead of Serena Williams and the gymnast Simone Biles. Such lists are designed to provoke debate, not settle it. They are more suited to the water cooler than to scientific journals. And Sports Illustrated is a US magazine, and so inevitably focused on stars its readers know best. Even so, after watching Katarina Johnson-Thompson sprint, hurdle, leap, throw, jump and puff her way to a dazzling pentathlon gold medal at the European Indoor Championships in Prague, during which she became only the second athlete to shatter the 5,000 points barrier, I wanted to see where she ranked. Eventually I found her, in 30th – one spot behind the American Ninja Warrior Kacy Catanzaro and three behind the Olympic heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill. Meanwhile Ashton Eaton, the US decathlon world record holder, was ranked just 19th in the men’s list. Of course we shouldn’t take this too seriously. Sports Illustrated included Tim Howard in its top 50 fittest male athletes, as well as – bizarrely – Nani and Hulk. The magazine’s methodology was back-of-an-envelope stuff too: James was given a perfect score of 40/40 – which meant he had the same speed ranking – 10 – as Usain Bolt, and the same endurance score, also 10, as Mo Farah. Inevitably people will also quibble over exactly what “fitness” is. However few would disagree with Dr Mel Siff, the influential sport scientist, that any definition should comprise of physical (strength, speed, stamina) and psychological (pain threshold, will, motivation) abilities. And also that excelling at a variety of these abilities thrusts you higher up the fitness charts. Which returns us neatly to Johnson-Thompson, who finished an agonising 13 points short of Nataliya Dobrynska’s world record of 5,013 in Prague. Multi-eventers are often accused of being a Jack – or Jill – of all trades and master of none. You can’t say that about Johnson-Thompson. Her 6.89m in the long jump on Friday would have won silver in the individual final the following day, while her high jump of 1.95m would have won bronze. Johnson-Thompson also holds the UK high jump record of 1.97m, while her long jump best of 6.93m is just two centimetres shy of the British record. Last year she also ran 22.89sec in her only competitive 200m – good enough for sixth in the individual European Championships final – despite very little specialised training at the distance. Her 800m best of 2:07.64, achieved after two days of hard heptathlon competition in Moscow in 2013, is not too shabby either. Some will point to her struggles in the shot put and javelin and say that Johnson-Thompson lacks strength. But when I spoke to her coach, Mike Holmes, he insisted that was a myth. “I have pictures of her with 300 kilos on her back, half-squats,” he said. “They are terrifying.” Remember, too, that Johnson-Thompson only turned 22 in January. Breaking the 7,000-points barrier for the heptathlon, achieved by only three athletes in history, is a realistic target. In Prague I talked to Barrie Wells, the sporting philanthropist who has supported Johnson-Thompson since she was 15 and is now a close friend, who believes there is almost no end to her talents. “She can even do a keepy-uppy with a football for ages,” he jokes. More seriously, Wells stresses Johnson-Thompson’s desire to improve in all seven heptathlon disciplines. “She is determined to become the first British woman to leap over seven metres for the long jump,” he adds. “And she believes she can significantly improve her shot put and javelin too.” Wells has offered a helping hand, funding the javelin thrower Goldie Sayers to help Johnson-Thompson in her weakest event. Sayers, incidentally, believes her new pupil could become Britain’s greatest female athlete. History will be the judge but it will certainly be fun watching her rivalry with Ennis-Hill and Morgan Lake, the 17-year-old heptathlon wunderkind, develop over the next few years. Even so, I’m not sure we – the British public – realise quite what we have got with Johnson-Thompson. While some newspapers splashed on her gold, many didn’t. And, as Andy Murray pointed out, her triumph was only “headline No22” on the BBC Sport website. This seems rather a pity given Britain has few sports stars who are genuinely the best in the world. Her success in Prague was also surely more significant than much of the Premier League’s flotsam and jetsam. Yet, sadly, it will have washed over many people. As for Sports Illustrated’s question, my starting point would always be this: many of the fittest athletes in the world can be found by looking at the best multi-eventers in the world. You might not be convinced yet. Rest assured, Johnson-Thompson will try her utmost to persuade you over the next 18 months. |