As the 2020 edition of the Herculis EBS meeting is only 8 days away, we’ve talked to the heptathlon World champion in Doha Katarina Johnson-Thompson, who will take part in the high jump contest next Friday. In our discussion, we’ve talked about these past few months, her life in France, her path to becoming a World champion and her goals for this meet in Monaco.
Matthieu: Where are you speaking from?
Katarina: I’m in Formia, Italy.
M: And how is your French?
K: It’s getting better. I was getting to a point where I’d understand a lot and then, the coronavirus happened, I went back to England for three months and forgot everything!
M: Starting all over again?
K: Yea, but it comes back quickly though. If you ask me, I’ll say it’s okay, if you ask any of my trainers, partners and coaches, they might tell you different. I’m at a point where I understand pretty much everything related to athletics. But if I eat with a group and there’s a wider conversation, I find it a bit hard to follow. As of speaking French, I think my accent needs a lot of work. And I need to add more confidence to it, I don’t like getting things wrong. After training, I usually spend some time on Duolingo.
M: Did you spend the whole quarantine in England?
K: Yup, in Liverpool.
M: And when did you come back to France?
K: I came back around the start of May. When the restrictions have started to be lifted here and everything kind of coming back. That’s when I came back. It was nice to be back and get one on one time with my coach again.
M: How was your quarantine in England?
K: Quarantine in England was good. I had access to the track a little bit and hills, and I had the gym in my basement. My coach sent me sessions from afar. I’ve been missing the technical input which I need most. As a heptathlete, I need to get through seven different events so it was quite difficult to keep the progress that I made before COVID. But I came back in decent shape, and now we have all the time in the world so I’m not too worried.
M: When you came back to Montpellier, could you train almost as you would before COVID?
K: Yea, it was pretty much back to normal.
M: Have you thought, at some point, that there would be no competition at all this year?
K: Yes, especially when the European championships in Paris got cancelled, that’s when I started to worry that it could be a dead year. After the Olympics (got cancelled), it was quite easy for me to bounce back and focus on the European championships, which I always plan to do. When that got cancelled, it was hard to focus on training.
M: How hard was it for you to get motivated?
K: It was though. Definitely though for me, because I believe I’m an athlete who works best when heading towards a significant goal. The fact that it was looking more difficult to get heptathlon out affected me a lot. I think I was in great form, heading to this year and I was building a lot of momentum. It’s good that I have some high-level competitions now. I think it’s important that athletes keep doing competitions at a high-level because it will be so much harder next year to get back if you take a year completely off.
M: Does it make you enjoy the process even more or does it make it harder?
K: I think different athletes have responded to this in different ways. Certain athletes have made their mission to work on weaknesses, other athletes taking the time to have a year off, and reflect on their career. Personally, I tend to respond at major championships, I always peak at major championships. I always save my best performances until it matters most. I’m one of those athletes who need that goal to get the best performance out of myself. So, it’s hard for me to train to the same level as I would if I was headed to Tokyo.
What I’m working on now is my techniques and that since I moved to France two years ago. I was always gutted or like “Uh, why haven’t I moved here sooner, and haven’t I had more time with my coach”. I’ve always wanted more time to work on my weaknesses. And I’ve improved much in a short amount of time. That can only be a better thing for next year that I’m going to spend more time working on these things with my coach.
Overall, I was really ready for this year, but we are all in the same boat. Athletes need to find the best way for them to make it on the line next year.
M: How much do you credit your move to France in your path to becoming a World champion?
K: I give all my credit to my coaches in Montpellier. They found the way for me as an athlete to respond best to the trainings, to not getting injured, to peaking at the right time. Since I’ve been in France, I won a lot of different titles, and the Europeans and the Olympics were the ones I was targeting this year. The World championships last year were definitely all down to my coaches in France.
M: What is your schedule looking like now?
K: I don’t know, because things keep on getting cancelled. Monaco is pretty soon, so I know it’s going to happen. Otherwise, I can’t say I’m doing this, this or this and then it gets cancelled.
M: Would have Monaco been part of your preparation in a usual year or did you seize the opportunity as everything got cancelled?
K: Monaco is an event that I’ve always wanted to do. It’s always been on my radar. The track and the stadium are absolutely beautiful. And there are always amazing performances that happen there each year. Most of the time, it has never really fitted into my schedule, nor my training program. This year, I really wanted to do Diamond League meets in the events I can compete in.
M: And what are your goals for this meet?
K: It will be one of my first competitions this year, so I don’t really know where my performances will take me. But I want to compete for sure, and try to have some enjoyments off this year.
M: Do you realize how you became a role model, not only for athletics fans, but for a wider population through your interviews in mainstream media?
K: Hmm. Yes, I can say it more and more as years go by. You know, I’ve just started to win in the last couple of years, so I didn’t really understand when kids would ask for photos or autographs. I was like “I’m really disappointed with my performance, I don’t know why you wanna be like me”. But in the recent years, and the recent months especially, quarantine has taught everyone a lot, and just gave people time to sit with their values, what they want from the world and what they believe in. It’s important now more than ever to speak out on different things, you know we’re not just athletes but people with opinions. And all the things in the past I’ve struggled with, I think it’s important for me to voice it. To normalize different struggles.
M: Have these opportunities enabled you to discover inspiring people, or gave you the will to do more things outside of track?
K: Stylist Magazine had these “Remarkable Women Awards”. And it was really, really cool to sit there and hear about all these different women stories and what they’ve done, what they’ve been through. It was such an inspiring day. With social media now, we have seen more storytelling, and I think it’s very important in this day and age that people can understand a spectrum of different people histories and experiences.
M: In the interview you gave to Stylist, you say your greatest fear is “not achieving your full potential”. How do you know what your full potential is?
K: If we talk about the heptathlon, it’s weird because you have an app and you can put down your best performances in every single event, so that gives you an example of what your full potential could be. But I just feel like the full potential is when I want to step away from the track and I think I could not have done anything better on that track. I’m living to have that moment. To be like “That’s the best I could have done”. I’m still not happy from my performances in Doha, there’s stuff to change and improve. I feel like my biggest fear is having regrets, saying “I could have done something different”, and that’s why I made some significant changes in my life. I moved to France when I was 24, away from all my family, my boyfriend at the time and completely changed my life.
M: Do you have regrets? Do you feel like you followed your own path and you’re exactly where you should be?
K: In Doha, a lot of people said to me “Oh, I guess all those hard times are worth it then”, and I was like “Noo”. Like if I could go back and change it, I probably wouldn’t foul in Beijing. I’d hoped to get the gold medal there. I’m scarred from those times but they definitely made me the athlete I am today. Because in the same time, this is my story and I can’t change it. It made me a stronger person. But if I could go back and change it, I would.
M: And what are your goals now?
K: Tokyo. I’m looking forward to Tokyo being close again. I want to get to that point in the winter where I am working for the Olympics again. I want to be working towards that goal.
M: Finally, how do you prepare yourself outside of what you do on track? Music, books, podcasts?
K: As an athlete I think I’m a person who when I’m at the track, I want to improve and change all the things that can make me have better performances. But when I’m away from the track, I don’t think about the track, at all. I do listen to music, I read a lot of Zadie Smith, I listen to a podcast called “The Receipts Podcast”, and my favorite podcast is “Dissect”, it’s incredible. It’s about music, and whatever album he rates, then he goes through line by line. Music wise, SZA is my favorite artist.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Matthieu FORTIN is a contributing writer for the Meeting Herculis EBS.
