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Johnson-Thompson 'in awe' of Ennis-Hill

Katarina Johnson-Thompson broke the British long-jump record in February © Getty Images

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Katarina Johnson-Thompson insists her "miracle" British pentathlon record will count for little when she goes up against the returning Jessica Ennis-Hill in the heptathlon this summer.

Johnson-Thompson, 22, scored 5,000 points to scoop gold at the European Indoor Championships in Prague on Friday and beat Ennis-Hill's long-standing national record - her third British record in as many months - but fell 13 points short of the world record.

Ennis-Hill, who famously won a heptathlon gold at the 2012 London Olympics, is close to making her sporting comeback after becoming a mother in July 2014 and faces up to eight meetings with Johnson-Thompson over the next few months, including a highly-anticipated clash at the World Championships in Beijing.

Long touted as the successor to Ennis-Hill, Johnson-Thompson is attempting to play down her achievements in Prague, pointing out that Ennis-Hill has the historical advantage in the heptathlon.

"She's the Olympic champion and she's got the British record outdoors," she said. "There's a big difference between the heptathlon and pentathlon.

"Pentathlon is my strongest event. It suits me well with the two jumps and one throw and two running events, which I'm good at. Heptathlon is a completely different ball game."

Johnson-Thompson insisted she is uncomfortable with the inevitable Ennis-Hill comparisons and still looks up to her compatriot.

"I'm in awe of any Olympic champion, for sure," she said. "She's one of the people who inspired me to be an heptathlete and I've seen her do it from a young age."

Ennis-Hill's heptathlon best of 6,955 dwarfs the Liverpool athlete's 6,682, but Johnson-Thompson has already significantly improved from when she set that mark last year.

She finished a mammoth 304 points clear of second place in Prague and hopes having rivals pushing her more in the summer will help encourage her to greater heights.

"It's a huge step up from the European Indoor Championships to being world outdoor gold medallist," she said. "But hopefully some sort of medal in Beijing is a realistic target now."

The shot put is Johnson-Thompson's one weak spot. Her Prague effort of 12.32m was the worst of the 13 athletes. In contrast she won the four other events.

"I shouldn't expect to have a world record with a 12.30 shot put," she joked when asked what her coach Mike Holmes had said to her after the competition.

She added: "I can't expect to be good at every event. It's just the way I put my pentathlon or heptathlon together. It's accepting that I'm not going to be winning five out of five. But I think it will get better."

Johnson-Thompson had a "bit of a sore throat" the morning after the night before.

It was certainly a gruelling schedule she had faced at the O2 Arena, with little time to recover between events, and she reckoned that with a kinder timetable she could have broken the world record.

"With a better schedule it could've possibly been done," she said.

"It's one of the toughest things I've ever done. With that timetable I've never quite experienced anything like it, from event to event I didn't get a break."

She added: "[My coach said] it was a miracle I got 5000 points with the timetable."

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