Coming up fast

With Jessica Ennis-Hill on a year out of competition to have her recent baby, since January the 21 year-old rising English heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson had been promoted as one of the Commonwealth Games poster girls and favourite for the gold medal.

Sadly, on the eve of the  the Games opening ceremony, she had to withdraw from the competition due to injury.

Yesterday, quite by chance, I came across some Eurosport coverage of the Junior World Athletics Championships taking place in Oregon.

I tuned in because I was particularly keen to watch the progress of Morgan Lake, the Wellington College pupil who is widely tipped to eclipse the unfortunate Johnson-Thompson before long. I had heard much about her, but never previously seen her compete.

There is an irony in that, with the Commonwealth Games competitions now under way, Lake’s extraordinary achievements this week have had little or no coverage in the British media.

Yesterday, she duly powered on through Day 2 of her event to win the world junior heptathlon title, posting with a new junior world record total of 6,148 points. In doing so she also achieved a new British junior high jump record of 1.94cm … and then failed in three attempts to jump 1.97cm, which would have been a new British women’s senior record.

Morgan Lake only turned 17 in May. Watch this space – it’s only a matter of time …