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Jessica Ennis-Hill: Katarina Johnson-Thompson rivalry means I have to be even better than before

Olympic gold medallist recognises need to up her game ahead of Great City Games

Matt Majendie
Friday 08 May 2015 21:15 BST
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Jessica Ennis-Hill
Jessica Ennis-Hill

It is a rivalry and it is not. Where shoppers normally dawdle down Manchester’s Deansgate on a Saturday afternoon, Jessica Ennis-Hill will make her return to competition in the women’s 100m hurdles at Saturday’s Great City Games, 80 minutes after Katarina Johnson-Thompson opens her outdoor season over double the distance.

While they will share the same track for the first time since the 2013 Anniversary Games – Ennis-Hill’s last competition – for a few fleeting moments in warm-up, potentially one of the great rivalries in British sport will have to wait for another day, more precisely in Götzis, Austria, at the end of the month.

Should Ennis-Hill return to her London 2012 form following the birth of her son Reggie, it has the potential to be a world-beating rivalry to match Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett in their pomp. But you could never imagine the middle-distance pair sitting down to lunch together as Britain’s two leading heptathletes did yesterday, Ennis-Hill showing pictures of her 10-month-old son to her rival as they ate soup and salad.

Both athletes are, in some ways, frozen in 2012, when Ennis-Hill won the gold medal that defines her career and Johnson-Thompson first made her senior mark.

The younger of the pair, who was 15th at the Olympics, admitted: “I’m still stuck in 2012. I still tell people I’m 19 years old. During 2012, I was a spectator of Jess with what she did. I remember when she came through the line, I was on the side still recovering from the 800m. I remember tearing up and it’s crazy to think that.”

Turning to Ennis-Hill, she added: “I’m fully expecting you to come back and take your place.”

The 28-year-old herself is not so sure how realistic an ambition that is, having roughly gauged in training how the physiology of her body has changed since childbirth but not having yet tested it fully in competition.

The problem, she argued, is that she has to be better than before. She was at home with her baby in March as Johnson-Thompson became only the second athlete in history to pass the 5,000-point mark in a pentathlon at the European Indoor Championships, falling an agonising 13 points short of the world record.

“It was a weird feeling sitting at home watching,” she says. “I enjoyed watching it, especially before the 800m. I was thinking ‘I bet you’re so nervous’.

“I was gutted for you [missing out on the record]. She was amazing, even though it’s a horrible feeling of disappointment. And yes, I was thinking ‘this is going to be hard’. It’s great to see the event moving on. I have to raise my game.”

Katarina Johnson-Thompson

Ennis-Hill has hardly given herself a low-key event at which to return. She will be facing the world champion for the event, Brianna Rollins, as well as the British record holder, Tiffany Porter. The other athlete in the four-lane race, Lucy Hatton, is no slouch herself, having burst onto the scene during the indoor season. It is not inconceivable that Ennis-Hill will be last, hardly the result of a returning champion.

But bigger rivalries await. Should she find herself back at the top, battling with Johnson-Thompson, is there a possibility their mutual respect could fissure? Ennis-Hill said: “On the track, we’re both fierce competitors and neither of us would step out of the way so the other could go ahead. But off the track, and in the media, I’ve not got a bad word to say about Kat and I hope she’s not got a bad word to say about me.”

Their strengths in the heptathlon are different: Ennis-Hill is nearly a second quicker over the hurdles while Johnson-Thompson boasts a near half-metre advantage in the long jump pit – not that either athlete is paying much attention to each other’s personal bests. “I don’t focus on Jess,” said Johnson-Thompson. “I focus on my own battles.”

In reality, though, the global focus is on both: Ennis-Hill as the returning Olympic champion, Johnson-Thompson as the form athlete, having won in Götzis last year and at the European Indoor.

The latter is more used to chasing: “It’s very weird to go into a competition as near enough favourite. Even if Jess wasn’t coming back, it would be difficult for me to get my head round. I really enjoy not being favourite and chasing people.” Today, in Manchester, is merely the precursor to the chase.

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