Around 40 British athletes and staff have been stranded in Budapest following the World Championships due to the travel disruptions in the UK.
The group of both athletes and staff members from UK Athletics were forced to return to their hotel after the flight havoc which has impacted thousands of passengers since Monday.
UK airspace was hit with a network-wide failure for air traffic control systems which caused disruption and hundreds of flights to be delayed or cancelled.
Some athletes are now travelling from Budapest directly to Zurich for the Diamond League meeting on Thursday while the UKA is working to get other athletes back home but do not yet know when they will return.
Great Britain were returning from Hungary after a successful World Championships where they won 10 medals – the joint highest in their history.
Great Britain’s Ben Pattison grabbed a brilliant bronze at the World Championships – and revealed he had life-saving heart surgery just three years ago.
The 21-year-old became the first British male athlete to win an 800m medal at the World Championships since Peter Elliott’s silver in 1987.
It came after an operation during the Covid pandemic to fix a heart issue which had seen his heart rate skyrocket to 250 beats per minute.
Pattison grabbed third behind champion Marco Aprop and Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi in Budapest.
He said: “I had Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. It was a bit scary at the time. It was Covid years so I didn’t miss out on racing but I was awake for the whole thing. It was a bit surreal. I was watching.
“They had to burn off a bit of my heart. At the time it was very scary but I had the right people around me.
“When they rang me they were pretty worried and as soon as they told me I wasn’t allowed to exercise at all.
“All I was allowed to do was go for walks, so I said to myself I’m going to go for walks every day. I had a lot of my friends on PS4 because it was the Covid times. So we’d wake up, get on Call of Duty.
“I remember when I got told I was like: ‘Is this my running career done?’ I almost had in the back of my head: ‘Is this the reason I’m good at running, because I’ve got this freaky heart?’
“I was almost worried when I got back I wouldn’t be the same.”
Pattison won bronze at last year’s Commonwealth Games but was not expected to challenge for the podium at the National Athletics Centre.
“I’ve never been the stand-out guy,” said the Loughborough Business Analytics graduate, who ran one minute 44.83 seconds.
“I’ve always been the guy on the team that’s been in the second or third place. I don’t win a lot of the domestic races but when it matters, I’m there.
“I’ve never not made a final in my life. I’ve got a Commonwealth medal and a world medal. If you’d told 10-year-old Ben he retired with a 1.44 personal best, a Commonwealth and world medal he’d have gone: ‘Who’s this looney?'”
Dina Asher-Smith was missing from the women’s 4x100m relay as Asha Philip, Imani-Lara Lansiquot, Bianca Williams and Daryll Neita claimed bronze.
Asher-Smith, who came seventh in the 200m final on Friday, revealed she had been dealing with a neural problem following the 100m semi last week.
The 27-year-old was unable to feel her legs in the closing stage of her race and will now leave the Championships without a medal.
The quartet still produced a season’s best of 41.97s to finish third as the USA and Jamaica claimed gold and silver.
Williams said: “We found out this morning (about Asher-Smith’s absence) but we’ve all done changes together. We all work well together. If Dina was here, great. She’s not here and we still got a medal.”
Neita added: “I’m really feeling this as a major stepping stone towards Paris and the Olympics. But in terms of the relay, it’s just another amazing medal to add to my collection.”
Jeremiah Azu, Zharnel Hughes, Adam Gemili and Eugene Amo-Dadzie finished fourth in the men’s 4x100m relay behind the USA, Italy and Jamaica.
The men of Lewis Davey, Charlie Dobson, Rio Mitcham and Alex Haydock-Wilson reached their 4x400m relay final.
Laviai Nielsen, Amber Anning, Nicole Yeargin and Yemi Mary John also reached their 4x400m relay final in three minutes 23.33s.
It was always expected to be an almighty clash between reigning women’s 4x100m relay champions United States and Olympic champions Jamaica. In the end, it was the Americans who prevailed in the final at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary on Saturday.
The American quartet of Tamari Davis, Twanisha Terry, Gabrielle Thomas and Sha’Carri Richardson, topped the event in a Championship record 41.03s Championship Record, ahead of their Jamaican counterparts – Natasha Morrison, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Shashalee Forbes and Shericka Jackson –who ended in season’s best 41.21s.
Great Britain’s quartet of Asha Phillip, Imani Lansiquot, Bianca Williams and Daryll Neita, was third in a season’s best 41.97s.
During the event, Fraser-Pryce who has been braving a chronic knee injury, suffered what is reported to be a muscle strain, but like a warrior, pushed through the difficulty to safely hand off the baton, ensuring the country ended with a medal.
Andy Murray is confident the injury which interrupted his US Open preparations has cleared up just in time for the main event.
The three-time grand slam winner, champion at Flushing Meadows in 2012, had to withdraw from this year’s warm-up tournaments in Toronto and Cincinnati.
Murray, 36, was unable to serve in practice until this week due to what he revealed turned out to be a torn abdominal muscle.
“The first five or six days were a bit complicated. There were lots of different opinions,” said the Scot.
“It is quite a difficult place to scan, the ab, so we weren’t really sure the first few days. And then I came to New York pretty early and went to one of the hospitals here and had the radiologist from back home who looks at my scans check them.
“I had a small tear, which is healing. And the last five or six days of practice have been really good. I have not had any issues serving.
“It is just obviously that you don’t take a week off from serving then go full into it. You need to build up a little bit. It has not been perfect in that sense but my ab has been OK.”
Murray begins his latest New York campaign against Corentin Moutet, the world number 71 from France, on Tuesday.
If he comes through that, a tasty second-round meeting with Bulgaria’s 19th seed Grigor Dimitrov is on the cards.
There will be seven Brits in the main draw after Lily Miyazaki came through qualifying.
The 27-year-old, who was born in Tokyo, beat Viktoria Hruncakova of Slovakia in three sets, 6-3 4-6 6-4.
It will be Miyazaki second appearance at a grand slam after she received a wild card for last year’s Wimbledon.
But Liam Broady was unable to join Murray, Miyazaki, Cameron Norrie, Dan Evans, Jack Draper, Katie Boulter and Jodie Burrage in the main draw after losing in the final round of qualifying to Sho Shimabukuro of Japan, 6-4 3-6 6-3.
Novak Djokovic, back after missing last year’s US Open due to his vaccination status, is in action on Monday night against France’s Alexander Muller on Arthur Ashe.
The 23-time grand slam winner can take over from US Open and Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz at the top of the men’s rankings just by winning his first-round match.
Women’s world number one Iga Swiatek, the reigning champion, opens proceedings on Ashe against Rebecca Peterson of Sweden.
Meanwhile Canadian Bianca Andreescu, the 2019 winner, has withdrawn from the tournament due to an injury.
A prayer before making their way into the stadium was the perfect way for the Jamaican quartet to start their bid in the women’s 4X400m relays and they will indeed challenge for a medal at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
This, as they booked their spot in Sunday’s showpiece event, after finishing tops in their heat on Saturday.
Cherokee Young, running from lane eight, ran the lead leg for the Jamaicans handing off to Nickesha Pryce, who ran a well-paced leg to send Shiann Salmon on her way.
Salmon did well to maintain the gap for Stacey-Ann Williams, who only had to run steady and true to take the team home in a new world leading time 3:22.74.
They won ahead of Canada (3:23.29), with Netherlands (3:23.75) taking the third automatic qualifying spot.
Great Britain won the second heat in 3:23.33, ahead of the favourites United States, who were later disqualified via Technical Rule 24.7, as they passed the baton outside the takeover zone.
That meant Belgium (3:23.63) and Italy (3:23.86) got second and third respectively, while Poland (3:24.05) and Ireland (3:26.18) got the two fastest non-automatic qualifying spots.
The final will be the curtain-call event of the nine-day Championships at 2:47pm Jamaica time.
Catch live action of the 2023 World Athletics Championships by downloading the Sportsmax App.
Daniel Dubois knows he will have to “bully” Oleksandr Usyk on Saturday night if he is to stand any chance of becoming Britain’s 10th world heavyweight champion.
Dubois (19-1, 18KOs) will attempt to etch his name into British history alongside Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Lennox Lewis when he walks out at Tarczynski Arena in front of around 43,000 spectators.
Usyk’s WBA, IBF and WBO belts will be on the line and the Ukrainian (20-0, 13KOs) will be backed by a partisan crowd in Wroclaw, which will be filled with Ukraine natives who have resided in Poland since Russian’s invasion of their country last year.
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The bookmakers make Dubois, 25, the overwhelming underdog but he tipped the scales at 16st and 9lbs at Friday’s weigh-in, almost a stone heavier than 36-year-old Usyk’s 15st and 10lbs.
Both boxers have fought 20 times in the professional ranks but there is a big disparity in rounds with Dubois involved in 105 fewer than Usyk’s 168, which has contained plenty for a world title.
Nevertheless, all of Dubois’ bouts have been at heavyweight while the former undisputed world cruiserweight champion only stepped up to the blue-riband division in 2019.
Dubois told the PA news agency: “I have been boxing for most of my life so that (age) argument is out of the window. I have the experience and I need to be a veteran in this fight.
“I have to bully him. I have to go in there and be the bully. Be the bully and shake him up.”
The Londoner also has a secret weapon after joining forces with trainer Don Charles, who was in Derek Chisora’s corner when the British veteran caused Usyk problems in 2020.
“Yeah, Don will be putting in things that I am not even aware of style-wise and coach-wise. He has a lot of passion and that is what you need,” Dubois said.
“You need the bully-the-bull type mentality to go in there and f*** s*** up, as they say. That is what we need to do.”
Stablemate Tyson Fury will also act as inspiration for Dubois with Queensberry Promotions promoter Frank Warren able to draw parallels between this clash and a memorable world title fight in Dusseldorf in 2015.
Few gave Fury any chance when he stepped out to fight Wladimir Klitschko eight years ago but he produced an enormous shock to win on points and claim the belts now held by Usyk in his own first world title bout.
Dubois added: “All the great fighters had to do it. Before they were champions, people doubted them and had a lot of things to say.
“Boxing is made up of opinions so I never take it to heart or let it break me. I am ready to go. Ready to go out there and prove what I need to do.
“Tyson is a good example. Look at what he has done and gone on to achieve now. I just need to get the prayers going and hopefully the big man upstairs hears me.”
While most of the pre-fight focus has centred on whether a unification clash between Usyk and Fury could finally occur in 2024, the mandatory challenger wants to spoil a homecoming party of sorts in Poland.
After coming through the storm of his 2020 defeat to Joe Joyce, where he took a knee which allowed himself to be counted out in the 10th round due to a hugely swollen left eye, Dubois believes he now has a date with destiny.
“My dad especially backing me and being behind me has been paramount,” he said.
“This doesn’t happen often but I am ready for this opportunity and ready to perform. That is the main thing to perform on the night.
“Go out there and show everything I have done. All the hard work I have put in and my dad has put in over the years. It is finally time.”
Great Britain’s Josh Kerr stunned Jakob Ingebrigtsen to take the 1500m title in style at the World Championships.
The Scot clocked three minutes 29.38 seconds to win a massive battle with Ingebrigtsen, who came second, over the final 300m.
He emulated Jake Wightman’s win in Eugene last year, with Wightman missing through injury this year, to deny Norway’s Ingebrigtsen – who also had to settle for silver in 2022 – the world crown again.
Great Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson must take her chance to become a world beater, according to Sally Gunnell.
The 1992 Olympic 400m hurdles champion believes Hodgkinson has the right mentality to secure her first global title at the World Championships.
Hodgkinson opens in the 800m heats on Wednesday with defending champion Athing Mu expected to compete after doubts over whether the American would travel to Hungary.
Kenya’s Mary Moraa also remains a threat to Hodgkinson – who has already won world and Olympic silver at the age of 21 – and Gunnell feels the Brit has the perfect chance in Budapest to top the podium.
“She’s still got many more years to go but sometimes you have to take these opportunities and now’s the time to do it,” she said.
“This week is going to be the big test of that, isn’t it? The last few years it has been about ‘wow, this new person is getting medals’.
“The stages you have to go in to be a top athlete, you’ve got to do your apprenticeship and this week is about going in as one of the favourites.
“She’s got massive competition in there, don’t get me wrong, so it’s not going to be an easy walkover by any means.
“These athletes don’t come by very often. It’s that outstanding talent and ability that somebody has, that natural ability she’s got.
“On top of that, she’s got a great mindset. She’s competitive. She’s focused, she trains hard. She’s got absolutely everything.
“She’s still young but she’s mature enough to be able to hold that and you almost feel like she has to take the opportunity because you don’t know what the next four years is going to be like.”
Gunnell’s husband Jon Bigg trains Jemma Reekie, who is also set to race in the 800m on Wednesday.
The 57-year-old, who won 400m hurdles gold at the World Championships in Stuttgart 30 years ago, believes this generation of athletes has the platform for success.
“It’s a very different era. Then we didn’t have the support of the National Lottery and being a full-time athlete,” she said.
“Now the support they have, the funding and the team that’s around them, has allowed us to have more depth and more are getting to finals.
“The pathway has been put in place. That’s the bit that is really showing us the difference.”
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Katarina Johnson-Thompson refused to get carried away despite remaining in gold medal contention at the World Championships.
The 2019 world heptathlon champion sits second, 93 points adrift of leader Anna Hall, after the first day in Budapest.
She still faces a battle to return to the global podium with the United States’ Chari Hawkins just five points behind and team-mate Taliyah Brooks a further 13 points adrift.
But, after an Achilles rupture in 2020, Johnson-Thompson remains cautiously optimistic.
She said: “I’m just seeing what I can do. Who would have predicted today?
“Sport is so unpredictable and especially heptathlon. That’s why I don’t like trying to think about what’s going to happen in the future. I’m just trying to take each event as it comes.
“It’s really close behind me as well. All I need to do is just keep knocking on the door, stay in the flow and who knows what can happen?
“I just want a medal. I’m definitely in amongst it.”
A storm postponed the action by an hour in the morning and forced Johnson-Thompson to wait.
The 30-year-old ran 13.50 seconds in her 100 metres hurdles heat, before clearing 1.86m in the high jump.
It left her fourth overall with 2104 points – 41 adrift of leader Hall – before the evening session.
A best of 13.64m in the shot put dropped her to joint fifth before victory in her 200m heat in 23.48s boosted her medal hopes heading into the second day.
She added: “Today has been one of the most gruelling days of heptathlon I’ve ever experienced. We are all feeling it and we’re all talking to each other and asking, why are we so tired?
“I think it was the delay, waking up at six, warming up and then being told ‘no, stop.'”
Zharnel Hughes, the fastest man in the world this year, clocked 10 seconds in his 100m heat ahead of Sunday’s semi-finals and final.
Hughes, the British 100m and 200m record holder, won his race while Reece Prescod, who pulled out of the relay squad earlier this week, qualified in third in his heat.
Eugene Amo-Dadzie, an accountant who is due back to work once the Championships finish, was second in his heat on his Great Britain debut.
The 31-year-old has taken annual leave to compete in Budapest and returns to work as a senior management accountant for property developer Berkeley Group on August 29.
“I’m on the world stage. I say to people who don’t really know track and field ‘I’m at the World Cup of athletics’ and they’re like ‘OK’,” he said, after running 10.10s.
“For me, that’s incredible because this is beyond a dream. I didn’t grow up dreaming to do this but, by the grace of God, I found myself doing this.
“I’ve had a lot of support from all the different accountant bodies. They’re like ‘yo, you’re putting accountants on the map’. We’re not just these boring stiff squares sat at the office typing away.”
Great Britain captain Laura Muir, who has endured a disrupted year after splitting from long-term coach Andy Young in March, was second in her 1500m heat in the morning session.
She clocked four minutes 03.50 seconds behind the Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan.
Kenya’s defending champion Faith Kipyegon remains the overwhelming favourite and won her heat in 4:02.62.
Great Britain’s Katie Snowden and Melissa Courtney-Bryant also progressed to Sunday’s semi final.
Muir said: “Job done, I wanted to qualify with as little drama as possible.
“I was a little disappointed we weren’t in the rain. I would have been happy to crack on but I know there’s a lot of electrical equipment and technical equipment and the rain doesn’t suit everybody.
“It’s a fast track, I think it’ll be an exciting champs. As soon as I did a couple of strides it felt nice. There’s always a bit of scrapping and spiking but I felt comfortable.
“I saw Sifan go past and I was expecting that but I was scared she would go and everyone would come. I kept looking up and saw there was a gap.”
In the men’s 1500m Josh Kerr, who won Olympic bronze in Tokyo, Neil Gourley and Elliot Giles all reached Sunday’s semis, with last year’s world champion Jake Wightman out with injury.
Jazmin Sawyers, the European indoor champion, finished 22nd in qualifying to miss out on the long jump final with a best of just 6.41m.
Dina Asher-Smith believes she is racing in the “golden age” of women’s sprinting.
The 27-year-old is ready to start her World Championships campaign in Budapest.
Asher-Smith, who finished fourth in the 100m at the Worlds last year despite equalling her British record of 10.83 seconds, and Daryll Neita race in the 100m heats on Sunday.
They are aiming to challenge Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Shericka Jackson and Elaine Thompson, who completed a clean sweep of the medals in Eugene 13 months ago. Asher-Smith took 200m bronze behind Jackson and Fraser-Pryce.
“I definitely do think we’re in like a golden age,” said Asher-Smith. “It will be remembered as kind of like a (Usain) Bolt era but on the side of the women’s, and far more competitive. There are a lot of women in that arena.
“You say Shelley-Ann and Elaine would be like, ‘ah?’ Then even this year, Shericka will be like, ‘er?’ There are just so many.
“I feel like when there’s so many people running fast, there’s no point thinking about other people. You’ve just got to focus on yourself.
“If you start focusing on one or two, you’ll forget about the other seven, who are also incredibly quick. There’s lots of very, very talented and very experienced women racing.
“I think we have one of the strongest and what will hopefully be the most exciting events of this World Championships.
“There’s a lot of depth. All you can do is focus on yourself, right? That’s all I can do. I can only control myself. So that’s kind of what I am doing.”
Neita, who along with Asher-Smith is also running in the 200m and 4x100m relay, goes into the Championships ranked seventh in the world in both individual events.
She said: “I’m feeling very confident. It’s going to be the first time I’m doing two events and then onto the relay as well. So it’s very different this year, because I’m normally going for the 100 metres, which is we know is stacked.
“Failing to make the final at worlds last year was very bittersweet, running the fastest ever semi-final not to make it.
“The 200m is still a pretty new event for me but I’m feeling very confident and I’m just going there this year, very relaxed, not putting too much pressure on myself, but just really want to have fun and execute and just achieve as well as I can.”
Katarina Johnson-Thompson recovered from a nervous heptathlon opening on the first morning of the World Championships.
The 2019 world champion sits fourth after a delayed start at the National Athletics Centre in Budapest.
A storm postponed the action by an hour and forced Johnson-Thompson to wait but she struggled in the first event.
The 30-year-old ran 13.50 seconds in her 100m hurdles heat, well behind the American trio of Taliyah Brooks, Anna Hall and Chari Hawkins.
Before her Achilles rupture in 2020, Johnson-Thompson had run a personal best of 13.09 seconds – en route to winning the world title in 2019 – and clocked a season’s best of 13.34 seconds at the British Championships last month.
She entered the high jump at 1.77m, clearing at the first attempt, before eventually leaping 1.80m on her third jump to settle the nerves.
A clearance of 1.86m left her second in the high jump and fourth overall with 2104 points – 41 adrift of leader Hall – with the shot put and 200m to come in the evening session in Hungary.
Great Britain captain Laura Muir, who has endured a disrupted year after splitting from long-term coach Andy Young in March, was second in her 1500m heat.
She clocked four minutes 03.50 seconds behind the Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan.
Kenya’s defending champion Faith Kipyegon remains the overwhelming favourite and won her heat in four minutes 02.62 seconds.
Great Britain’s Katie Snowden and Melissa Courtney-Bryant also progressed to Sunday’s semi final.
Muir said: “Job done, I wanted to qualify with as little drama as possible.
“I was a little disappointed we weren’t in the rain. I would have been happy to crack on but I know there’s a lot of electrical equipment and technical equipment and the rain doesn’t suit everybody.
“It’s a fast track, I think it’ll be an exciting champs. As soon as I did a couple of strides it felt nice. There’s always a bit of scrapping and spiking but I felt comfortable.
“I saw Sifan go past and I was expecting that but I was scared she would go and everyone would come. I kept looking up and saw there was a gap.”
Jazmin Sawyers, the European indoor champion, finished 22nd in qualifying to miss out on the long jump final with a best of just 6.41m.
The 4x400m mixed relay quartet of Joe Brier, Laviai Nielsen, Rio Mitcham and Yemi Mary John reached Saturday night’s final in three minutes 11.19 seconds.
Nielsen said: “It was fast and loud, so I think that gave us an extra lift. We have all been itching to go so we are pleased with how we have performed as a team.”
Zharnel Hughes, the fastest man in the world this year, runs in the 100m heats in the evening with Reece Prescod and Eugene Amo-Dadzie.
Keely Hodgkinson believes athletics stars never get the credit they deserve.
The 21-year-old is in Budapest ahead of her assault on the 800 metres title at the World Championships.
Emma Raducanu’s US Open win in 2021 catapulted her to stardom while Hodgkinson is still a relative unknown outside of athletics in the UK.
That is despite her Olympic and world silver medals along with three European golds.
She said: “I do think us athletes work a lot harder than some other sports and we don’t get the recognition we deserve. I don’t know how but hopefully we will get there.
“I think because an athlete is individual, obviously you have your team around you which is great but you have a lot of individualisation time. I think it’s just hard.
“If it’s a team and you lose, the whole team is supporting you. If it’s you, everything is on you and you’re the one that controls what happens when you set off.
“That’s just a different kind of pressure. Training for these events, it’s tough. Footballers think they’re fit, they’re just not. Because if you brought them down to the track they wouldn’t keep up.
“Everyone works hard. Tennis players work really hard, everything is just different. But in all the different aspects you have in athletics, I don’t think people realise the behind the scenes of what goes into it.”
Hodgkinson has also limited the brands she works with – just Nike, Omega and Maurten – to ensure she remains focused on training, but was still called ‘athletics’ new It girl’ in an interview with Vogue this month.
“When you work with brands they also want something back,” she adds. “Days here, days in London, media days. If you’ve got six, seven, eight different brands your time is going to be taken up quite a bit – and my main priority is training.
“I just want to make sure they understand and they don’t want too much from me that it takes away or stresses me out, or anything like that. I’m protecting who I work with just to see what comes along.”
Her quest for 800m gold starts in the heats on Wednesday but world champion, the USA’s Athing Mu, has been keeping Hodgkinson guessing over whether she will compete in Hungary or focus on next year’s Paris Olympics.
Hodgkinson finished second behind Mu in Eugene last year and at the Tokyo Olympics, with their battle still poised to be one of the races of the Championships.
“When you’re missing a big name, when people come they want to watch that,” she said. “It would definitely be a shame if she’s missing. But we don’t know what’s going on on her side of the world and what her story is.
“We’ve not heard anything so I guess we just have to wait and see, but I try not to think about who’s going to turn up and who’s not.
“You kind of go in with the mentality that everyone’s going to be there and if they’re not, they’re not.
“That (gold) is a personal goal of mine anyway. So it would just be quite fulfilling if I did that.”
Meanwhile, skipper Laura Muir starts her 1500m campaign at the National Athletics Centre on Saturday, along with GB team-mates Katie Snowden and Melissa Courtney-Bryant, aiming to challenge Kenya’s world and Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon.
“Obviously, you always want to come away with a medal but it’s about the stuff you can control,” said Muir. “That’s what I talked about in the captaincy speech.
“The two key messages were: no limitations on yourself, because you don’t know what you’re capable of, you can go out there and run way faster than you thought, and then no expectations of others.
“You have no idea what other people are capable of either and what shape they’re in.”
Katarina Johnson-Thompson is ready to return to her best and believes the world heptathlon title is up for grabs.
The 2019 champion is eyeing the podium at the World Championships after last year’s winner Nafi Thiam pulled out.
Belgium’s Thiam, the double Olympic champion, is sidelined with an Achilles issue as she targets the treble at next year’s Games in Paris.
The USA’s Anna Hall, third in Eugene last year, is favourite for the crown in Hungary but Johnson-Thompson feels the competition is wide open.
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“Before Thiam dropped out, I felt like it was very much like a head-to-head between Thiam and Anna Hall and now I don’t know what it’s going to take to win a medal,” she said, ahead of the start of the heptathlon in Budapest on Saturday.
“I don’t know what it’s going to take to win. So that’s why I feel like it’s open. I could name five people who could finish between first, second and third.
“Sometimes the heptathlon can be a two-person race and then everyone else is fighting for the bronze, I feel like this year is quite open and I don’t know where it’s going to go.
“You never know. I’ve always been worried that 2019 was my peak, because then Covid happened and I had my Achilles rupture and the momentum I was building towards my peak got short changed and cut off.
“I feel like anybody who’s won a major championship has the ability to say ‘I’ve done it before therefore, it can be done again’. I feel like that, even though I can’t remember it.
“Whenever I look back at videos, or see images of Doha, it just takes me back to that place in time and the frame of mind I was in.
“So it’s always a positive thing to look back. What has been done before can be done again. That’s the type of frame of mind I get myself into when I see those images.
“I just like to prove myself right. I feel like if I let other people’s opinions in, I wouldn’t be sitting here saying that I’m in good shape and excited about the outcome, because I would have instead believed that I might as well give up or my body isn’t right for it.
“My goal is a medal and I think I can score what it takes to get on the rostrum but you never know whether the event is going to go off or if it’s going to be quite subdued.
“I’m trying to predict the future but I can’t. I feel like that’s why I’m just chilled because you’re just never going to know.”
Johnson-Thompson beat Thiam to win world gold in Doha four years ago before her Achilles rupture in late 2020.
She recovered to make the Tokyo Olympics only to suffer a calf injury in the 200m and withdraw. She finished eighth at last year’s World Championships – having split with coach Petros Kyprianou weeks before after only five months in Florida.
A successful defence of her Commonwealth Games title in Birmingham put her back on the podium and she is now content in Hungary.
“This one feels different in the way that I feel like I’m the calmest I’ve ever been going into it,” said the 30-year-old, now based in the UK under Aston Moore.
“In Doha it was exciting and I had a big battle but with this one I feel completely calm and full of experience.
“I’ve done it so many times now and it never gets any easier but you can approach it in a different manner. I feel like this one, I’m just going to put all my experience into it and see where it gets me.
“It’s always a stepping stone to next year, because ultimately the main goal of my career is to get an Olympic medal.
“This is maybe my last heptathlon before Paris – I don’t know if I’m going to do another one. So it’s like a full on dress rehearsal.”
Holly Bradshaw has revealed she has beaten crippling anxiety to lay her pole-vault ghosts to rest.
The 31-year-old is ready for the World Championships in Budapest after returning from a nightmare injury streak.
Bradshaw suffered a freak accident in Eugene last year when her pole broke in the final jump of her warm-up.
It left her with back, arm and hamstring injuries and she then snapped her hamstring at the Commonwealth Games a few weeks later in a rush to compete in Birmingham.
A comeback this year, shaking off an Achilles issue, has seen her make the plane for Budapest on her world ranking position but it has not been without its own fears.
She said: “I was crippled with anxiety leading into it and I just had to remind myself, this is what I love. Going through the warm-ups out in Lausanne (Diamond League in July) I was nervous. I was pretty much shaking.
“I felt sick. I hadn’t competed in over a year and actually jumped well in over two years in a competition environment.
“There’s also the anxiety of clearing the bar. Having my big fall in Oregon has created some anxiety around pole vaulting, especially in windy conditions. So there’s this something that sits in the bottom of your stomach or in your mind that says, ‘I don’t want to do this. This is scary.’
“The first couple of competitions was really trying to overcome that and overcome that fear but once that hard bar went up and I cleared the opening one I had the biggest smile on my face.
“I didn’t pick up a pole after I snapped my hammy until January. That’s five and a half months I couldn’t run down the runway.
“I would have loved to have just got back up and planted the pole, that would have done my psychology a world of good, but because I couldn’t it was tricky.
“I’m quite robust, I don’t know whether it’s like the northern streak in me. I’m renowned on the circuit for, ‘she’ll pop off the pole, fall and then she’ll just get straight back up and clear the bar’.
“I just don’t let those negative things seep into my brain. I’m just kind of crazy. I just go for it. The biggest challenge for me was trying not to let those terrifying, negative, thoughts come in.”
After finishing second at the British Championships to Molly Caudery last month, Bradshaw now feels it is important to talk about any issues so others can understand what athletes deal with.
“Athletes being more open with what they’re going through, with what they’re struggling with, it just educates people,” she said.
“How are you guys (the media) meant to know what’s going on if we don’t tell you? So we tell you what’s going on and then there’s more knowledge around that situation. In the past athletes get frustrated but actually it’s on them to be open as well.
“I remember when I was a young athlete, I wanted to keep my injuries secret. I didn’t want anyone to think I’m weak.
“Now it’s like, ‘this is what’s going on in my life and this is what I’m navigating’.
“I’m just doing the best that I can and I’m kind of on this journey to try and achieve something. I’m going to tell you all about it and not be embarrassed or shameful of it.”
World Athletics president Lord Sebastian Coe believes “real deal” Keely Hodgkinson and sprint star Zharnel Hughes are Great Britain’s best bets for World Championship glory.
Hodgkinson missed out on the world 800 metres title by just 0.08 seconds to American Athing Mu last year and also finished second behind the same athlete at the Toyko Olympics in 2021.
The 21-year-old has been in excellent form this season, setting a world best indoors over 600m in January and defending her European indoor title before beginning her outdoor season by lowering her British record in Paris.
Hughes has enjoyed arguably even better preparation for Budapest, the Anguilla-born star breaking the 30-year-old British records of Linford Christie and John Regis over 100 and 200m respectively in the space of a month.
His 100m time of 9.83 seconds, recorded in New York in June, remains the fastest in the world this year.
Asked if Hughes’s performances had earned the respect of the top sprinting nations and could lead to gold in Budapest, Coe said: “Yes and yes.
“I can give you the feedback from the cradle of sprinting and the NACAC congress in Costa Rica last month.
“People whose judgement I really value, both in Jamaican sprinting and US sprinting, think he can win in Budapest simply because it may not be that fast a race anyway. Their judgement is that he is absolutely a contender.
“The more people coming on the scene and fighting their way into the upper echelons of the sport is terrific and for British sprinting it’s not just a good thing, it’s an important thing.
“And those were good records; John Regis’s 200m record was one for the ages when he set it.”
Hodgkinson has tasted just one defeat over 800m so far in 2023, finishing second behind Kenya’s Mary Moraa, the Commonwealth champion, in Lausanne.
“I think she’s the real deal, I’ve thought that for some time,” added Coe, who also feels Dina Asher-Smith and Katarina Johnson-Thompson will challenge for medals in Budapest.
“At the age of 19 winning a silver in a world championships, similar type of performance at an Olympic Games, she’s outstanding. She’s coached well, she’s grounded and she’s talented.
“She is at this moment in great shape and this is where we’re beginning to see some strength in depth with Jemma Reekie running 1:57 in London. We’ve got depth now and genuine quality and this is encouraging.”
Coe reiterated that no Russian or Belarusian athletes would be competing in Budapest following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a stance that World Athletics is set to maintain for next year’s Olympic Games.
“We’ve taken the view they won’t be in Paris,” Coe said. “We made the decision that we felt was in the best interests of the sport.
“Decisions we’ve made in the past have been tough ones, whether it’s around preserving the female category, transfers of allegiance, the initial suspension of Russia back in 2015 – we’ve done it because it’s been the right thing to do.
“If it has given other sports permission or comfort to feel that they can do the same then that’s a good thing but it’s entirely up to them – we didn’t do it for that reason.
“The nature of these decisions is that the world does change. We are also creating working groups to monitor the situation so we aren’t closing the door forever.
“We’re not the ‘computer says no’ federation and we’ve always, if we could, found the navigable route through.”
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