One of Europe’s big hopes for a medal at this summer’s Olympic Games may well look back to the significance of last Saturday in Wigan when the action intensifies in Rio.
Competing in an area league match now she is free from injury, British heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson achieved a key landmark in her career by breaking 13 metres for the shot put for the first time, taking her previous leading distance of 12.47m to a new mark of 13.14m.
So happy to have opened my season with a 60cm shot put PB today. Not the best javelin, but so happy to be competing again, injury free
— KJT (@JohnsonThompson) May 7, 2016
With this superb new mark, KJT, as she is known, signalled she is back.
Her old personal best came during last year’s world championships in Beijing, where she entered as one of the favourites but finished 28th after failing to record a score in the long jump.
It was some learning curve, just a matter of months after she had stolen the show on the opening day of the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Prague, where she won the pentathlon with a championship and national record of 5000, missing the world record by just 13 points.
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That performance, coupled with her victory in Gotzis in 2014, was indication of her growing ability and while it did not go to plan in Beijing, Johnson-Thompson, 23, will be looking to put that right in Rio.
Her strength and determination is greater than ever and now she put flesh onto the bones of her predictions with this display in Wigan.
Recently she has talked about the heartbreak of Beijing and how she is taking every chance she can in training. It seems it is a process which is working.
Even though she does not have the Olympic qualifying standard of 6200, she should secure that when she returns to Gotzis at the end of this month, where she achieved her personal best of 6682 when she won there two years ago.
It is the third best by a Briton, behind Jessica Ennis-Hill (6955) and Denise Lewis (6831). And they are some act to follow. They are both Olympic champions, with Ennis-Hill set to defend her title in Brazil, even though her own recovery from injury means she will not be in Gotzis.
But for Johnson-Thompson, her shot put personal best in Wigan on a Saturday in May might just be the start of a year to remember.