Keely Hodgkinson battled through illness to remain the queen of Europe and admitted: “That’s the worst I’ve ever felt racing.”
The 22-year-old led from the outset to win a second continental 800m gold in 1:58.65. And while the manner of her victory was not as convincing as anticipated, the key context was that she had spent much of the day thinking about withdrawing because of a virus. “It’s not been the greatest 24 hours,” Hodgkinson said. “I would have liked a better time but it was just about finding a way to win.”
With a personal best four seconds faster than the field, she was priced up at 1/33 by bookmakers. And her confidence was so high that in advance of the heats on Monday morning, she indicated this was about challenging herself more than being challenged by the competition.
Then she began to feel a scratchy throat on Tuesday morning and it progressively got worse despite knocking back vitamin C, paracetamol and aspirin to soothe her symptoms. “I had been umming and ahhing about racing all day,” she added. “But hopefully it’s been worth it. When did I decide to run? Probably 10 minutes before the call room."
Starting in lane seven, Hodgkinson got motoring immediately because “I knew they’d have to catch me” and she was on 1:51.5 pace at 200m. The tempo naturally slowed and the chasing pack, led by bronze medalist Anais Bourgoin, did their best to keep tabs. But Hodgkinson, much like her illness, could not shake them off.
A time half a second slower than in the semis and a winning margin of only 0.14sec had to be enough as Slovakia’s Gabriela Gajanova closed hard for silver.
In reality this result did nothing to change the expectation that she will win another Olympic medal, following on from her silver in Tokyo.
Barring injuries, nightmare performances or indeed sickness, reigning Olympic champion Athing Mu and world champion Mary Moraa should take the other two steps on the podium.
Neither will have learnt anything new if they were watching this race from afar. But Hodgkinson did fire a warning shot by claiming: “I feel I’m in the shape of my life, I’ve just got to get rid of this thing.”
The women’s 4x100m quartet of Dina Asher-Smith, Desiree Henry, Amy Hunt and Daryll Neita looked imperious as they led from gun to tape by posting a European lead of 41.91.
And in the men’s 1500m Jakob Ingebrigtsen put down another marker ahead of his highly-anticipated battle against Scotland’s Josh Kerr by running a championship record 3:31.95 despite spending the opening 400m as a back-marker. World champion Kerr decided to skip this competition to focus on his preparations for Paris.