Katarina Johnson-Thompson has been through every emotion in Tokyo but now the National Stadium has finally given her a happy ending after a dramatic World Championship bronze.
In the build-up to these worlds, the Olympic silver medallist had insisted that she was not after redemption on the track where she had to be wheeled away in a chair after a calf injury in front of an empty stadium four years ago.
That moment will stick with the 32-year-old from Liverpool as the toughest of her career, but one she has put behind her with a second world title and first Olympic medal in the years since.
Still, when the time came to return to the arena, with the heptathlete supporting good friend Jazmin Sawyers last Saturday in front of a packed crowd, the emotions were overwhelming.
She said: “I have been through it in this stadium. When I first came out here to support Jaz earlier in the week, the minute I stepped into the stadium, I just started sobbing.
“It instantly just hit me and I couldn’t believe it because I haven’t really cried about that for a long time.
“The minute I stepped in, I felt the emotion and I saw the track and it just felt like the same.
“I was so happy to get that out of my system. Yesterday, when I was lining up for the 200, it’s very hard not to think about that as much as you’re trying to stay in the moment.
“It’s the same track where a big trauma happened in my life because I put a lot of effort to get on that start line for the 2021 Covid Games. So I was so happy to just finish day one.
“Then to come away from here and have a better memory and be able to take away a medal – and also for my mother to be here, my family and my partner to be here and to share that moment with them – it just feels like I’ve rewritten a better story about this city and this place.”
This was not just a better story, it was also one for the history buffs as Johnson-Thompson shared the bronze medal with America’s Taliyah Brooks.
Ties are not unusual in athletics – famously Gianmarco Tamberi and Mutaz Essa Barshim both took home high jump gold here in 2021 – but in a multisport event scored in points, they are unheard of.
Johnson-Thompson had gone into the 800m in fourth place, knowing that she would need to beat Brooks by 5.8 seconds to overtake her.
As it was, she crossed the line in 2:07.38, behind only overall gold medallist Anna Hall. Brooks then gave everything she had to cross exactly 5.79 seconds back.
That left both women on 6581 points, leading to some confusion over what the outcome would be.
Brooks was named first on the electronic scoreboard, while the Brit was initially not mentioned over the stadium announcement of the podium.
But very quickly the athletes found out that there would be no countback of finishing positions and that for the first time in heptathlon history at either world or Olympic level, there would be two bronze medals.
Johnson-Thompson said: “Exactly the same points, you couldn’t write it. And I’m so happy that neither of us lost by a point because that would have been horrendous.
“I didn’t know how far she was behind and I didn’t want to look. I was just going to wait for the scoreboard.
“I’ve been in this situation no many times and I just thought, wait until that official result has come. And then when the official result comes, I still didn’t have any answers.”
That answer eventually came, with Johnson-Thompson claiming a third world medal, having won gold in 2019 and 2023, as well as her Olympic silver in Paris.
Elsewhere, Kate O’Connor took silver to become the first Irish track athlete to win a World Championship medal since Sonia O’Sullivan 30 years ago.
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