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Katarina Johnson-Thompson says she has not ruled out going for a fifth Olympics in 2028.
The 31-year-old made her debut on home turf at London 2012 coming 13th, finished sixth four years later in Rio, but was forced to pull out of her third Games after sustaining a calf injury in Tokyo.
Johnston-Thompson enters these Olympics as the reigning world heptathlon champion and insists she has no intention of slowing down post-Paris.
The Liverpudlian said: “That phrase doesn’t come to mind, ‘one last push’. I feel like I’m growing into myself, and the longer that I’ve been doing the sport, the more I know about myself and about how to be ready for it.
“The longer I’ve done it, the more I feel like I understand what my body needs, how to get to a good performance and quieten out everything else.
“So I feel like I’m getting stronger and stronger in the sense of I know how to do it better than I did 10 years ago, so it saddens me at the thought of having all of this knowledge and then stopping.
“As long as I’m competitive I’ll continue.”
Johnson-Thompson pulled out of the European Championships in Rome at the start of June after only three events.
She then missed a fortnight of training and had a number of injections in her Achilles, but did compete at the UK Athletics Championships in Manchester and the London Diamond League last month, finishing sixth in the long jump with a 6.54-metre effort.
Her final taste of action before leaving for France was at the England Athletics Championships in late July, with a wind-assisted 13.54 in the heptathlon 100 metres hurdles and 1.81 metres in the high jump.
Johnson-Thompson says her tendonitis is “ongoing, but at the minute it seems to be OK”.
This time around, the two-time world champion will have another Briton in the mix in the form of Olympic debutant Jade O’Dowda, the younger sister of Cardiff City and Republic of Ireland footballer Callum.
The 24-year-old Oxford athlete shared a podium with Commonwealth Games champion Johnson-Thompson when she collected bronze in Birmingham two summers ago.
Johnson-Thompson said: “It’s so nice to have a team-mate. It’s going to be really cool to have somebody else representing Team GB and just having someone to talk to.
“She’s had an amazing season, so I’m really excited to see what she is going to get up to.”
Both women get their Paris campaigns under way on Thursday morning with the 100 metres hurdles.
As long as I’m competitive I’ll continue— Katarina Johnson-Thompson
Johnson-Thompson has become a name inexorably entwined with Team GB, and admits she now gets recognised “quite a bit, especially when the Olympics are happening” and “especially since (London) 2012,” when Jessica Ennis-Hill was crowned heptathlon champion on ‘Super Saturday’ for Great Britain.
It was, until Keely Hodgkinson’s 800 metres triumph on Monday night in Paris, the last time a British woman won Olympic track and field gold.
Johnson-Thompson added: “I think a lot of shine has been on the heptathlon, and I do benefit from that. I feel the support from everyone.”
In June, she was honoured with a 30-metre high mural on Dale Street, next to the Excelsior pub in Liverpool city centre.
The Liverpool supporter said it was “surreal” to see it at scale, then said: “It’s an Evertonian pub right next to it, so I think they were a bit gutted to find (it says) ‘you’ll never run alone’, but the sentiment is really good.”
Johnson-Thompson is aware of the opportunity athletics has, in nearby Paris, to enrapture UK audiences before the summer Games head to less friendly time zones in Los Angeles and Brisbane, characterising this summer as “the closest to London 2012 we’ve ever felt”.
After switching coaches several times over the last few seasons, the British record holder is now back in the UK, training under Aston Moore.
Ennis-Hill has already backed Johnson-Thompson to win gold.
Asked how all four of Games compare, Johnson-Thompson replied: “I wouldn’t know how to do that. They’ve all been so different, it would be impossible for me to try and summarise.
“I guess I do live my life based on Olympic cycles. I see each one like a different era.
“This one has felt sort of refined, and it’s all been leading into this competition.
“I’m just ready for it now.”
