Katarina Johnson-Thompson suffers injury blow

Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s Olympic preparations have taken a significant blow after the heptathlon world champion suffered an achilles injury.

Sportsmail can reveal one of Britain’s best gold medal shots for Tokyo has been in a protective boot since the training accident at the end of 2020.

While it is unclear whether the injury required surgery, it is understood she will not be able to return to training until March. The boot is expected to come off this week.

Sources have indicated that her participation at the Games is not in doubt and that she has made excellent progress in her recovery.

But it is nonetheless a troubling development that the 28-year-old will have to spend up to two months out of training at the start of the Olympic season.

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Johnson-Thompson’s rise across the past three years has been among the most heartening in British sport.

After injuries and poor performance held her back in the early part of her career, she has developed into a major global force with gold medals in the 2019 world championships, the 2019 European Indoors, the 2018 European Championships and the 2018 European Indoors. She also took silver at the 2018 European Championships.

That world title in 2019, when she crushed the Olympic champion Nafi Thiam, has set up one of the most fascinating showdowns in Tokyo.