Katarina Johnson-Thompson has admitted she switched coaches just before the World Championships, where she will defend her world title. The change aims to give herself the best chance of success at the Paris 2024 Olympics. The British heptathlete ended her five-year training relationship with Bertrand Valcin in 2021.
But just months after moving to Florida, the 29-year-old world champion split from Petros Kyprianou this June as she “just didn’t like it there”.
“Looking ahead to Paris 2024, I wanted to make these decisions sooner rather than later”, said Katarina Johnson-Thompson
Bertrand Valcin helped Katarina Johnson-Thompson to win world gold in Doha in 2019 and she has now returned to the UK to work with Aston Moore, who has coached her before when previous coaches were unable to join her at certain competitions.
“I have made the decision to return home and move on without Petros, which is a shame. At the end of the day I have to do what is right for me and I believe that is it. We finished amicably. That’s why I didn’t want to really go into it and cause unnecessary headlines”, added the British athlete.
As well as adapting to a new coach ahead of this year’s World Cup in the US, which starts tomorrow, Katarina Johnson-Thompson is still working his way back to optimum form after various injury problems over the past 18 months.
She recovered from a ruptured Achilles to compete at last year’s Tokyo 2020 Olympics, only to see her dream of a first Olympic medal dashed by a calf injury in the 200m.
Katarina Johnson-Thompson recorded her third-lowest heptathlon score in May (6174 points), although it was her first full heptathlon since becoming world champion with a British record of 6981 points in October 2019.
Two-time Olympic champion Nafissatou Thiam is looking to regain the title that the Belgian won in 2017.
