Johnson-Thompson strengthens heptathlon medal bid with 1.83m high jump in Birmingham

Katarina Johnson-Thompson boosted her heptathlon medal prospects at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham on 14 August 2026 by clearing 1.83 metres in the high jump. She will begin the second heptathlon session on Friday evening in 10th position.

Two-time world champion Johnson-Thompson has never won a European heptathlon title, having taken silver in 2018 behind Nafissatou Thiam. Three-time Olympic champion Thiam is absent from the championships, and Johnson-Thompson's own injury issues left her form entering the event unclear. The 33-year-old had competed just once — in the shot put at an event in Loughborough in May — since winning world bronze in Tokyo last September.

That clearance was bettered only by leading pair Adrianna Sulek-Schubert of Poland and Ireland's Kate O'Connor, and Johnson-Thompson had earlier posted 14 seconds flat in the 100m hurdles, which ranked 15th overall.

British team-mate Jade O'Dowda sits in 12th after a 13.21-second run in the 100m hurdles and a 1.71m clearance in the high jump.

"It's just not quite there for Kat at the moment," Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford said on BBC TV. "She doesn't really know, I don't think, where she is [fitness-wise]. She's been training of course but until you get into competition and stress the body, you don't know. "It's a good performance under the little that we know about what shape she is currently in."

Johnson-Thompson achieved the sixth global podium of her career at last year's World Championships - and her third in as many years since recovering from a devastating Achilles rupture. She withdrew from the Commonwealth Games last month to focus on being in shape for the Europeans after battling to be fit following an unspecified injury.

The heptathlon continues later with the shot put and 200m events completing the first day of competition. Long jump, javelin and the 800m take place on Saturday. Johnson-Thompson will seek to limit her losses in the shot put - typically one of her weakest events - as she trails leader Sulek-Schubert by 141 points, and the podium places by 80.