Great Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson wins first gold medal in 800m final

SAINT-DENIS, France — Keely Hodgkinson made it look simple. She took the lead after the primary 300 meters. Then on the 500 meter mark, she turned it up a notch.

The true contenders adopted her, everybody else dropped again. However she nonetheless clearly had a lot left within the tank.

By the point she completed the ultimate flip and went into her kick, it was a wrap. Nobody was catching her. Hodgkinson received her first gold medal with a time of 1:56.72.

Ethiopia’s Tsige Duguma received silver with a personal-best time of 1:57.15. Kenya’s Mary Moraa completed in 1:57.52 to take bronze.

USA’s Juliette Whittaker, in her first-ever ultimate, completed seventh at 1:58.50. She was the one American to make the ultimate.

That is Hodgkinson’s first main worldwide championship, having received silver within the Tokyo Video games and in each the 2022 and 2023 World Championships. It got here with out her predominant competitors within the 800 meters. America’s Athing Mu, who fell on the U.S. Olympic trials, didn’t qualify for the Olympics.

It robbed the occasion of a really aggressive ultimate as, it seems, Hodgkinson with no equal. She was the clear class of the sector.

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(Photograph: James Lang / USA Right now)