I don’t see it as a redemption story – Johnson-Thompson

This is not a redemption mission, according to Katarina Johnson-Thompson.

One of the worst experiences the 32-year-old has had was with her previous experiences in Tokyo.

She has since resurrected to levels that were once unattainable.

Johnson-Thompson’s Olympic heptathlon hopes were shattered by injury during the 200-meter race in a soulless stadium without spectators in the Japanese capital four years ago.

She has recovered and continued as she did when she did that day, and she now has a two-time world champion and silver medalist.

Johnson-Thompson stated on BBC Sport, “Potentially, it will be in my mind [perhaps in the 200m], but I don’t see it as a redemption story at all.”

“I now perceive my story as happy.” I’ve experienced a lot of lows.

Johnson-Thompson expressed her relief at receiving an Olympic silver that felt as good as gold at her fourth Games in Paris.

After Rio 2016, she realized her potential as a world champion when she won her first world gold in Doha three years later, feeling ready to give up when mentally exhausted.

She returned to the sport’s top with a second world gold two years after being physically broken in Tokyo and recovering from a career-threatening Achilles rupture in just eight months.

As Johnson-Thompson completed her rollercoaster ride to the Olympic podium, Johnson-Thompson was only two seconds away from winning the final 800m, but the final piece of the puzzle arrived.

She said, “I always come away from the Olympics with a lot of sadness,” which was odd because of it.

I had the medal to prove it, but I still felt depressed despite doing so this time.

“The journey is now very significant to me. The memories you make, and what you do, along the way. Because it was such a wonderful time, I believe I was just grieving as I prepared for the Paris Olympics.

I was so happy to see it come to fruition by believing in something. But now that it’s over, what will we do next?

Johnson-Thompson isn’t currently feeling her sense of purpose in the sport waning, and she’s ready to compete in her seventh World Championship, which she claims is her lucky number.

With both athletes aiming for a third world title, she will once again compete against Belgium’s three-time Olympian Nafi Thiam for global gold.

Anna Hall of America is also a contender for the gold medal. With 7, 032 points in June, the 24-year-old recorded the joint-second highest total ever, just behind only compatriot Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

It’s difficult for me to see anything else because athletics has always been my life, Johnson-Thompson said.

“If I’m competitive, I’ll keep going as long as I can.” If I’m not, I’ll probably say “it’s time to go” and I won’t enjoy it.

I never felt like I should retire [after the Olympics], despite the fact that by the time my 800-meter sessions were over, I would tell my coach, “This is the last time you’ll see me, I’m never doing this again.”

It hasn’t been the best year for Johnson-Thompson, who is coached by Aston Moore, with encouraging training periods that were interrupted by minor injuries.

Rival Thiam, by contrast, took 12 months to make her Olympic debut after the summer, but Johnson-Thompson insisted that “you can’t write Nafi off at any point, ever.”

It’s going to be a fierce competition, she continued, and it’s exciting that the heptathlon is quickly gaining steam, she continued.

Johnson-Thompson identified potential kinks in the athletes’ training for the Tokyo heptathlon after the curtain-raising 100m hurdles on Friday evening, where the athletes had been battling it out for three hours.

But she thinks that those demands will be comfortingly familiar in more ways than one.

It reminds me of the grassroots days when I used to play for Liverpool Harriers in transitional events.

It resembles the schedule at the World Championships in Doha, too.