The hugely anticipated heptathlon showdown between Katarina Johnson-Thompson and Jessica Ennis-Hill, which is due to take place in May, will be “spectacular”, the British Athletics performance director, Neil Black, has predicted.
Black had a front-row seat as Johnson-Thompson reaffirmed her position as the best women’s multi-eventer on the planet by winning pentathlon gold at the European Indoor Championships in Prague – narrowly missing out on a world record by only 13 points.
Ennis-Hill, meanwhile, gave birth to her son, Reggie, last year and has not competed since 2013. The 29-year-old has not attempted a heptathlon since winning gold at the London 2012 Olympics. However, Black says that everything he has seen suggests that Ennis-Hill’s comeback is on track as she prepares to face Johnson-Thompson at the Hypo-Meeting in Götzis.
“Jess has put out a statement that she’s going to be in Götzis, she wants to be at the world championships, she understands it’s a year of exploration and development,” he said. “But all the feedback is that she is making great progression, so I think it’s real.”
Black admitted he was also excited at the prospect of watching Johnson-Thompson, Ennis-Hill and the 17-year-old prodigy Morgan Lake at the same event. “I just think it’s an amazing set of circumstances,” he said. “To think that they are all going to be hopefully in Götzis and they’re all hopefully going to be at the World Championships this year, and the Olympics next year, it’s just a kind of magical time. It is just going to be spectacular.”
Black also hinted that he believed Johnson-Thompson was capable of becoming only the fourth athlete in history to overhaul the 7,000 points barrier for the heptathlon, adding: “I think that’s her aim, I don’t think the expectation is any less than that. None of us knows how good she can be, I think we’re going to find out this year.”
Was he encouraged by how disappointed Johnson-Thompson was in not breaking the world record in Prague? “Yeah, I think it was brilliant, that’s what I want her to be,” he said.
Britain finished with nine medals in Prague – more than any other country – and although they fell one short of their record tally at the European Indoor Championships, Black admitted he was “chuffed” with the performances of his young team. “I think the expectation is that we’ll now regularly medal and I think we’ve re-established ourselves as a leading nation in Europe,” he said. “It demonstrates our strength in depth and shows we’ve got a younger group of people who are all capable of medals.”
Meanwhile, Dina-Asher Smith, the supremely talented teenage sprinter, was singled out for special praise after equalling the British 60m record in winning silver behind Dafne Schippers. “To hold yourself together in a championship like that, to repeat high-level performances, to come back and equal the British record, I think it’s kind of a fairytale,” he said. “She’s very happy but she knows that it’s a platform for bigger and better things, but those times and those competitions, that’s competitive anywhere in the world.”
There was praise, too, for Richard Kilty, who added the European Indoor 60m title to last year’s world indoor crown. “I think he was just awesome,” said Black. “I think he’s re-established himself as a serious sprinting candidate. He is working well together with his new coach, Linford Christie, and I think there’s a lot more to come.”
However, Black insisted the British team would not be getting complacent before this year’s world championships in Beijing and the 2016 Olympics in Rio. “It’s a big, tough world out there and there’s a lot of people waiting to grab those medals,” he said. “We’re very aware of that, we need to just keep going but get better.”