Katarina Johnson-Thompson seals heptathlon redemption by making long jump

Katarina Johnson-Thompson was one of three British athletes to qualify for the women’s long jump final at the World Athletics Championships in China.

The intervening days had, she admitted, been unbearable – to the extent that she checked out of the team hotel in Beijing and moved into her mother Tracey’s hotel room for fear of being asked by her team-mates if she was OK, a catalyst for the tears to flow.

“I used to be nervous simply considering it was going to occur once more”, she stated.

“There’s more to come and I think it was just a case of running my legs out, but I’m happy and where I want to be”, she added. “I didn’t want to kill my legs off and not do well here”.

Britain will have three representatives in the final after the British record holder, Shara Proctor, who has jumped 7m this season, sneaked in with a best effort of 6.68m and the least heralded of the trio, Lorraine Ugen, qualified second with 6.87m. When individuals have been good to me that is once I began to get upset. “I didn’t want to see anyone or have to talk to anyone”. She then finished 11th in the long jump final.

Johnson-Thompson described the past few days as “really hard”, but said words of support from Greg Rutherford have helped.

The speed of the runway has made timing the run-up hard and big names have crashed out in both the men’s and women’s competitions.

USA’s Olympic champion Brittney Reese, who has won five consecutive world titles combining indoors and out, could only manage a best of 6.39m and does not make the final.

Proctor nearly followed her and she said: “I was a little too passive, but I made it and that’s all that matters”. British record-holder Tiffany Porter was the second quickest with her 12.73 to also ease through to the semi-finals where she will be joined by her sister, Cindy Ofili, who ran 12.97, as well as the likes of Dawn Harper-Nelson, Sharika Nelvis and Wu Shujiao, much to the delight of the home crowd.

Charlie Grice and Chris O’Hare progressed smoothly to the 1500m semis, Grice finishing fourth in his heat in three minutes 43.21 seconds and O’Hare fifth in.

With only one non-automatic qualifier quicker than her in the second heat, Britain’s Steph Twell qualified as a fastest loser from the first heat.

However, neither Isobel Pooley nor Morgan Lake qualified for the high jump final, with both unable to clear higher than 1.89m.