Olympic silver medallist Katarina Johnson-Thompson has pulled out of the 2026 Commonwealth Games due to injury, a significant blow to the athletics program on the day of the opening ceremony.
Johnson-Thompson, 33, had been set to compete in the heptathlon for the third time at a Commonwealth Games. She won gold on the Gold Coast in 2018 and defended that title in Birmingham in 2022. Team England gave no details about the injury and confirmed only that she had been replaced in the squad by Niamh Emerson, who took bronze behind Johnson-Thompson at the 2018 Games.
BBC Sport reported that Dina Asher-Smith and 400m Olympic silver medalist Matt Hudson-Smith, both set to run relays for England, have also been replaced. Sprint team-mate Daryll Neita and 400m runner Amber Anning were also pulled from the squad. Renee Regis, Ebuka Nwokeji, Tara Simpson-Sullivan and Tom Keen were added to the England athletics roster. The track and field competition begins Monday.
The withdrawals add to a broader pattern of star athletes skipping the Glasgow Games. St. Lucia's 100m Olympic champion Julien Alfred has also pulled out, and Canadian swimmer Summer McIntosh is prioritizing the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships instead. England's Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson had already opted out to focus on the European Championships, which begin in Birmingham on August 10.
Several factors have complicated the Games' ability to attract top-level competition. The United States, China and major European nations are not part of the Commonwealth structure, which already draws some athletes toward other events. The schedule was only confirmed in October of last year, giving athletes and national federations little time to plan. The Games were originally scheduled for March but were thrown into uncertainty in 2023 when the Australian state of Victoria withdrew as hosts.
Organizers pushed back against the narrative that the Games were diminished. Glasgow 2026 chief executive Phil Batty pointed to the athletes who are competing.
"We have got an incredible field of athletes," he said. "It is really important to make sure we have those athletes at the pinnacle of their career and you can see that across the sports. It is equally exciting to see, just like what happened in 2014 [previous Glasgow Games], which athletes this starts that breakthrough moment."
Commonwealth Sport chief executive Katie Sadlier acknowledged the scheduling difficulty and said her organization would work with other events going forward to carve out a clearer window. "This Games was a little bit of a challenge because we only had 18 months," she said.
Scottish athletes Josh Kerr, who holds the mile world record, and defending 10,000m champion Eilish McColgan remain among the medal contenders for the host nation.
