Jessica Ennis-Hill ready for World Championships test

Katarina Johnson-Thompson believes she may have to set a personal best just to make the podium when she goes up against the Olympic champion Jessica Ennis-Hill in the heptathlon at the world championships on Saturday.

Ennis-Hill, meanwhile, said she has been hugely impressed with how Johnson-Thompson has improved since London 2012. The Liverpudlian’s take is somewhat different.

The praise she garnered, she has since admitted, made her “stress a little bit”, partly as she envisaged Tokyo 2020 as being a more realistic time to peak than the more imminent Games.

Injuries permitting, it should be the first edition of an annual showdown to be played out over the next two years in Rio and London at forthcoming Olympics and World Championships. “I feel I have been training non-stop to get to this place and I’m definitely mentally ready to compete, it’s just frustrating for me not to have that competition fitness”. Such has been her progress that a medal looks likely even if not the gold she has grown accustomed to. She was chatting about her day and stuff then she came out and smashed it. So I think she is quite a relaxed competitor.

“I’m going in not knowing I’m definitely capable of achieving this, this and this… which is what I went into Prague thinking”.

“I remember thinking how far behind I was and how advanced these girls were and how I was never going to progress that much in four years”, she said. “It’s just that competition practice I am missing”.

But will the pair talk to each other this time round? We are very focused.

Where Katarina Johnson-Thompson steered clear of her older team-mate “in case I got in the way of her focus” during the London Olympics, this time around the two will compete on a level playing field.

The Sheffield athlete missed out in 2008 due to a stress fracture in her right foot, only to bounce back in style by storming to the world title the following year.

“I’m here halfway round the world, away from my son for over two weeks and I want to make it worthwhile and perform well”. This is a stepping stone for next year’. “Then next year I hope I can start producing some performances that will be reflected later in the year at the Olympics”.

“At the moment I think Brianne (Theisen-Eaton) is probably the favourite to win”, she adds.

“It should be a really good battle with Jess”, she said. It’s just whether I’m able to actually get them after the injuries I’ve had. It’s not a gamble but I am going into the unknown. This time around, she may have another rival in Ennis-Hill but it is more than that.

But after scoring 6,520 points in Austria in June to finish fourth in her first heptathlon since giving birth to son Reggie last summer, a medal is a real possibility.

The defending champion regularly arrives at a major championships short of her best form and she has done so again.

With sister Cindy Ofili alongside her in a GB vest, she is aiming to unsettle the Americans and emulate or better her 2013 bronze. Training has gone near perfectly, although the opposition will be tougher.