Katarina Johnson-Thompson will have her sights on her third medal of the season in Berlin this summer as she began counting down the weeks until the European Championships.
On a glorious final day of track and field action at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast of Australia, England's Johnson-Thompson basked in the sunshine of her success in the heptathlon 24 hours earlier with her eyes firmly fixed on the major event of the summer.
Glasgow and Berlin will co-host the first multi-sports European Championships in August with the German capital staging the athletics competition at the Olympic Stadium.
Johnson-Thompson won the pentathlon title at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Birmingham last month and 42 days later, she landed the first senior outdoor title of her career with heptathlon gold at the Commonwealth Games.
“I have always wanted it but I never believed it could happen,” said Johnson-Thompson, 25, as she looked down at the gold medal hanging around her neck.
“It is just April and I already have two gold medals. I now need to rest, get my body back into good shape and I will hopefully have a clear run as I have 16 weeks until Berlin.”
Johnson-Thompson, who will skip the Gotzis Hypo-Meeting in May in order to focus on Berlin, was forced to miss the 2014 Commonwealth Games and 2014 European Championships due to a stress reaction in her leg just as she was rounding into some excellent form.
But this success was the third major senior title of Johnson-Thompson’s career to go along with her European indoor pentathlon title from Prague in 2015 when she just missed the world record with her tally of 5000 points.
Johnson-Thompson just about made it over the finish-line in the 800m in 2:21.24 with strapping to her right calf as injury played its part. She only took one attempt in both the long jump (6.50m) and javelin (40.46m) but she still was in class of her own, winning with 6255 points from Canada’s Nina Schultz with 6133 points.
Fourth at the European Athletics U20 Championships in Grosseto, Italy last July, 18-year-old Niamh Emerson from England improved her lifetime best to 6043 points for bronze.
She will now target the IAAF World U20 Championships in Tampere this summer before deciding on Berlin.
More information on the 2018 European Championships:
- The Berlin 2018 European Athletics Championships will be part of the first multi-sport European Championships along with co-hosts Glasgow.
- It will be a must-watch, must-attend experience that elevates the status of European Champions, uniting existing European Championships to celebrate the highest honour in European sport and celebrating the defining moments that create Champions.
- It is the continent’s ultimate multi-sport event, an 11-day celebration of European sport staged every four years.
- Seven of Europe’s leading sports (athletics, aquatics, rowing, golf, cycling, gymnastics, triathlon) will be brought together for the first edition.
- The European Athletics Championships in Berlin will be staged 7-12 August. The six other sports will be staged in Glasgow through 2-12 August.
- 4500 athletes and 52 nations will compete across the seven sports.
- Potential TV audience of over one billion with millions more across multiple digital platforms.
- Over half a million spectators expected.