KATARINA JOHNSON-THOMPSON has pulled out of this weekend’s European Indoor Championships.
Johnson-Thompson is the reigning European pentathlon champion but was planning to focus on the individual long jump event when the three-day event kicks off in Belgrade tomorrow (FRI).
But she has now pulled out to focus on this summer’s World Championships in London where she will bid to get a senior outdoor title for the first time.
She will compete in the heptathlon at the Olympic Stadium with arch-rival Jessica Ennis-Hill having retired.
The 24 year-old withdrew from the Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix last month with a hamstring problem but is understood to have recovered from that.
She admitted at the European Indoor trials in Sheffield last month that she hadn’t enjoyed athletics for two YEARS, but now has a smile back on her face after switching coaches.
Sunsport first revealed in December that the heptathlete star had shunned the chance to work with Olympic hero Jessica Ennis-Hill’s former coach Toni Minichiello — and opted to join Frenchman Jean-Yves Cochand’s team in Montpellier in the south of France.
Johnson-Thompson split with long-term coach Mike Holmes after finishing sixth in Rio last summer despite being tipped for a medal.
She missed the Commonwealth Games in 2014 through injury then suffered a nightmare at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing when she failed to register a single mark in the long jump - one of her best events.
Johnson-Thompson who now has a flat in Montpelier, finished second in the long jump at the European Indoor trials with a leap of 6.69m in her first competition since changing her coaching set-up.
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It was her best ever season opener.
In her absence team-mates LORRAINE UGEN and JAZMIN SAWYERS - who was booted off The Voice last weekend ahead of the live shows - will aim to be the first British woman to win a medal in the event since Sue Hearnshaaw took gold in Gothenburg in 1984.
They face a tough challenge to clinch gold with defending champion and Serbian superstar Ivana Spanovic competing on home ground.
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