Katarina Johnson-Thompson sets new personal best & finishes fourth in Gotzis

The Merseyside-born athlete finished sixth at the 2016 Olympic Games.

Britain's Katarina Johnson-Thompson broke her personal best but only finished fourth in an incredible heptathlon event in Gotzis, Austria.

The top four all recorded personal bests, with Olympic champion Nafissatou Thiam winning with 7,013 points and Johnson-Thompson scoring 6,691.

The Briton, 24, led overnight by three points but saw that disappear in Sunday's first event, the long jump.

Carolin Schafer was second with 6,836 and Laura Ikauniece third with 6,815.

United States' Jackie Joyner-Kersee holds the heptathlon world record - 7,291, set at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Such was the high quality of the event that Johnson-Thompson's points total was the highest for a fourth-placed finish in heptathlon history.

She began Sunday with 6.53m in the long jump, but it was eclipsed by Thiam's 6.56m and then a 6.57m from Schafer - the German's fifth personal best in five events.

In the javelin, Belgian Thiam moved 185 points clear following a throw of 59.32m, while Johnson-Thompson produced 39.98m - her best in a heptathlon since 2014.

The Briton needed to run two minutes 11.72 seconds in the final event, the 800m, to record a new PB. She managed to clock 2:11.12 to break her previous best total by nine points.

Johnson-Thompson split with her long-term coach Mike Holmes last November, and left her home city of Liverpool to join a new training group in Montpellier.

Katarina Johnson-Thompson posted on Twitter her reaction to a new personal best

In the decathlon, Briton Ashley Bryant recorded a personal best of 8,163 to qualify for the World Championships. He finished in 10th place.