Defending heptathlon champion has been forced to pull out of the competition following a knee injury

Katarina Johnson-Thompson will not return to Gotzis to defend her heptathlon title at the Hypo-Meeting later this month following a knee injury sustained earlier this year.

After claiming European pentathlon gold with a British record 5000 points in Prague in early March, the 22-year-old suffered the injury which has since affected her training.

She recovered enough to finish second in the 200m hurdles at the Athletics Weekly Great CityGames Manchester on Saturday but will not be in a position to contest the heptathlon in Austria on May 30-31.

“Some good conditioning work has been possible, but it is only recently that Katarina has returned to relatively light track work, which was sufficient to enable her to compete on Saturday,” explained her coach Mike Holmes.

“However, much of the preparation necessary to compete effectively across all events for the heptathlon in the Gotzis Hypo Meeting at the end of May has been lost.”

He added: “It is now possible to start back and progress steadily to full training to catch up and prepare for later in the summer; with the World Championships heptathlon in Beijing very much in mind.”

Johnson-Thompson set a world leading mark and personal best of 6682 points when claiming victory on her Gotzis debut last year. That points tally put her third on the British all-time list behind only Jessica Ennis-Hill and Denise Lewis.

Ennis-Hill had also been among those announced for the Hypo-Meeting, however the Olympic champion’s coach Toni Minichiello has since said that a decision over her participation will be made nearer the time, with Ennis-Hill only having returned to competition for the first time in almost two years in Manchester at the weekend.

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