Katarina Johnson-Thompson facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Katarina Johnson-Thompson
MBE

Johnson-Thompson in March 2018
Personal information
Nickname(s)	KJT
Born	(1993-01-09) 9 January 1993 (age 32) Liverpool, England
Height	1.83 m
Weight	68 kg
Sport
Sport	Athletics
Event(s)	Heptathlon, Pentathlon
Club	Liverpool Harriers
Coached by	Aston Moore
Achievements and titles
Personal best(s)	Heptathlon: 6981 NR (Doha 2019) High jump: 1.98 m (Rio de Janeiro 2016) Indoors Pentathlon: 5000i NRi (Prague 2015)
Medal record Women's athletics Representing  Great Britain Olympic Games Silver 2024 Paris Heptathlon World Championships Gold 2019 Doha Heptathlon Gold 2023 Budapest Heptathlon World Indoor Championships Gold 2018 Birmingham Pentathlon Silver 2014 Sopot Long jump European Championships Silver 2018 Berlin Heptathlon European Indoor Championships Gold 2015 Prague Pentathlon Gold 2019 Glasgow Pentathlon Representing  England Commonwealth Games Gold 2018 Gold Coast Heptathlon Gold 2022 Birmingham Heptathlon Women's athletics (age-grade) Representing  Great Britain European U23 Championships Gold 2013 Tampere Heptathlon World Junior Championships Gold 2012 Barcelona Long jump World Youth Championships Gold 2009 Brixen Heptathlon

Katarina Mary Johnson-Thompson, born on January 9, 1993, is a super talented athlete from England. She's known for competing in "multi-events," which means she's great at many different track and field sports! Her main events are the Heptathlon (seven events) and the Pentathlon (five events, usually indoors).

Katarina has won many big titles. She is a two-time world champion in the heptathlon. She also won two gold medals at the Commonwealth Games. She has an Olympic silver medal and a European silver medal in the heptathlon. For indoor pentathlon, she is a world champion and a two-time European champion.

In 2019, Katarina won the heptathlon gold medal at the World Championships. She set a new British record with 6,981 points. This score makes her one of the best heptathletes ever! She also holds the British indoor pentathlon record with 5,000 points. She won gold in this event at the 2018 World Indoor Championships. She also won at the 2015 and 2019 European Indoor Championships.

Katarina has often competed against other amazing athletes. These include fellow British athlete Jessica Ennis-Hill and Belgium's Nafi Thiam. Katarina is the only athlete to have beaten Thiam in a major global competition since 2016. These two athletes are considered the best multi-eventers of their time.

Katarina has also competed in individual events. Her strongest are the high jump and long jump. She holds the British outdoor record for high jump. In long jump, she won gold at the 2012 World Junior Championships. She also won a silver medal at the 2014 World Indoor Championships.

Early Life and School

Katarina Johnson-Thompson was born in Liverpool, England, on January 9, 1993. Her mother, Tracey Johnson, is English, and her father, Ricardo Thompson, is Bahamian. Her mother used to be a dancer.

Katarina spent her first year in Nassau with her father. Her parents had separated. She then moved back to the UK to live with her mother in Halewood. There, she went to St Mark's Catholic Primary School. This is where she first became interested in athletics. Later, she moved back to Woolton with her mother. She attended St Julie's Catholic High School. She was good friends with actress Jodie Comer there. Katarina started studying sports science at Liverpool John Moores University. But she left after just 21 days to focus completely on her sports career.

Athletic Journey

Starting Out in Youth Sports

Katarina represents Liverpool Harriers, a club in Liverpool. Her early training was partly supported by the Wells Sports Foundation. This foundation helped her get advice from Jessica Ennis-Hill, who was already a famous athlete.

In 2009, Katarina won a gold medal in the heptathlon. This was at the 2009 World Youth Championships in Athletics in Italy. She had a tough year in 2010. She missed most of the season because of a knee injury called "jumper's knee."

In May 2012, Katarina broke Jessica Ennis's British junior record. This was at a competition in Italy. Her score of 6007 points helped her qualify for the 2012 Olympics. She improved her score even more in June. She set a new personal best of 6,248 points in the Czech Republic.

At the 2012 World Junior Championships in Athletics in Spain, Katarina decided not to do the full heptathlon. She wanted to save her energy for the Olympics. Instead, she competed in the long jump. She won a gold medal with a jump of 6.81 meters. She also ran in the 100 meters hurdles.

Olympic Debut and First World Championships

Johnson-Thompson (C) at the 2012 London Olympic Victory Parade.

Katarina competed for Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. She was in the women's heptathlon. She finished in 13th place with a score of 6267 points.

In 2013, Katarina competed in the World Championships heptathlon. She finished in 5th place. She set new personal bests in the 200m, long jump, javelin, and 800m. She was very close to winning a bronze medal.

First Big Medals

Johnson-Thompson won the pentathlon at the 2015 European Indoor Championships in Prague. She was only the second woman to score 5,000 points or more in the event.

On July 11, 2014, Katarina set a new personal best in the long jump. She jumped 6.92 meters at a meeting in Glasgow. This made her the second-best British long jumper ever. She won gold at a big heptathlon competition in Austria. But she missed the Commonwealth Games and European Championships that year due to a foot injury.

Katarina set a new British high jump record in February 2015. She jumped 1.97 meters at the British Indoor Championships. A week later, she set a new British indoor long jump record. She jumped 6.93 meters in Birmingham.

In August 2015, Katarina had a tough time at the World Championships in Beijing. She was in second place after the first day. But she had three foul jumps in the long jump, which meant she didn't get a score for that event. She finished in 28th place.

Katarina competed at the 2016 Hypo-Meeting. This was her first big competition after knee surgery in 2015. She finished sixth, which was enough to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

At the Rio Olympics, she finished sixth in the heptathlon. However, her high jump performance of 1.98 meters set a new British record. This jump would have been good enough for a gold medal in the individual high jump event!

In September 2016, Katarina changed coaches. She moved to France to train with a new team.

In August 2017, Katarina competed in the heptathlon at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics in London. She finished in 5th place. She also competed in the individual high jump event, finishing fifth.

World and Commonwealth Titles, and Olympic Medal

Johnson-Thompson competes in the long jump event at the 2018 European Championships in Berlin.

In 2018, Katarina had a fantastic year. She won the World indoor pentathlon title. Then she won the Commonwealth Games heptathlon gold medal. After that, she won a silver medal at the European Championships. She set a new personal best score of 6759 points.

In May 2019, Katarina set another personal best in the heptathlon. She scored 6,813 points.

She won gold in the heptathlon at the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Qatar. She set a British record with 6981 points.

The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo were tough for her. She had a serious Achilles tendon injury before the games. She managed to compete, but during the 200m race, she tore her calf muscle and fell. She bravely got up and finished the race, but she was disqualified. She could not compete in the rest of the events.

Katarina competed at the 2022 World Championships, finishing eighth. She then won the heptathlon at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England.

Katarina won gold again in the heptathlon at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest. This was her second World Champion title!

In 2024, Katarina competed at the European Championships. She had to withdraw due to an injury. At the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, she won a silver medal. This was her first Olympic medal! She came very close to winning gold against Nafissatou Thiam. She also set personal bests in the shot put and 800m at these Olympics.

Media Appearances

Since 2023, Katarina has appeared in advertisements for British Gas. She is one of several British Olympians and Paralympians in these ads.

Life Outside of Sport

Since 2016, Katarina has split her time between her hometown of Liverpool and the city of Montpellier in France. She started dating fellow athlete Andrew Pozzi in 2018.

She is a big fan of her hometown football team, Liverpool FC.

Statistics

Katarina at the Anniversary Games in London, July 2016.

Johnson-Thompson (R) with Anouk Vetter at the 2017 World Championships held in London.

Johnson-Thompson won the 800 m run to claim the pentathlon title at the 2018 World Indoor Championships in Birmingham.

All information below is from her World Athletics profile.

Personal Bests

Seasonal Bests

International Competitions

Representing  Great Britain /  England

Year	Competition	Venue	Position	Event	Result
2009	World Youth Championships	Brixen, Italy	1st	Heptathlon	5750 pts
	European Junior Championships	Novi Sad, Serbia	8th	Heptathlon	5375 pts
2011	European Junior Championships	Tallinn, Estonia	6th	Heptathlon	5787 pts
2012	World Junior Championships	Barcelona, Spain	1st	Long jump	6.81 m
	Olympic Games	London, United Kingdom	13th	Heptathlon	6267 pts
2013	European U23 Championships	Tampere, Finland	1st	Heptathlon	6215 pts
	World Championships	Moscow, Russia	5th	Heptathlon	6449 pts
2014	World Indoor Championships	Sopot, Poland	2nd	Long jump	6.81 m
2015	European Indoor Championships	Prague, Czech Republic	1st	Pentathlon	5000 pts
	World Championships	Beijing, China	28th	Heptathlon	5039 pts
			11th	Long jump	6.63 m
2016	Olympic Games	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil	6th	Heptathlon	6523 pts
2017	World Championships	London, United Kingdom	5th	High jump	1.95 m
			5th	Heptathlon	6558 pts
2018	World Indoor Championships	Birmingham, United Kingdom	1st	Pentathlon	4750 pts
	Commonwealth Games	Gold Coast, Australia	1st	Heptathlon	6255 pts
	European Championships	Berlin, Germany	2nd	Heptathlon	6759 pts
2019	European Indoor Championships	Glasgow, United Kingdom	1st	Pentathlon	4983 pts
	World Championships	Doha, Qatar	1st	Heptathlon	6981 pts NR
2021	Olympic Games	Tokyo, Japan	–	Heptathlon	DNF
2022	World Indoor Championships	Belgrade, Serbia	–	Pentathlon	DNF
	World Championships	Eugene, OR, United States	8th	Heptathlon	6222 pts
	Commonwealth Games	Birmingham, England	1st	Heptathlon	6377 pts
2023	World Championships	Budapest, Hungary	1st	Heptathlon	6740 pts
2024	European Championships	Rome, Italy	–	Heptathlon	DNF
	Olympic Games	Paris, France	2nd	Heptathlon	6844 pts

National Titles

• British Athletics Championships
  • Long jump: 2014
• British Indoor Athletics Championships
  • Long jump: 2014, 2018, 2019
  • High jump: 2014, 2015

Awards and Honours

• British Athletics Writers' Association: 2019 Cliff Temple Award for Female Athlete of the Year
• Sports Journalists' Association: 2023 Committee Award
• Laureus World Sports Award for Comeback of the Year: Nominee 2024
• MBE for contribution to athletics in the 2025 New Year Honours

See also

In Spanish: Katarina Johnson-Thompson para niños

• List of World Athletics Championships medalists (women)
• List of IAAF World Indoor Championships medalists (women)
• List of Commonwealth Games medallists in athletics (women)
• List of European Athletics Championships medalists (women)
• List of European Athletics Indoor Championships medalists (women)
• Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the World Athletics Championships
• List of Commonwealth records in athletics
• List of English records in athletics
• List of people from Merseyside