Georgia Hunter Bell had been through the permutations in her mind. What would she do to get over that 800m finish line?
In every possible scenario, the idea that she would pip training partner and roommate Keely Hodgkinson did not come up.
But when it came down to it, Hunter Bell’s dip was the difference as she edged out Olympic champion Hodgkinson by a hundredth of a second to upgrade last summer’s Paris bronze to silver.
Hodgkinson’s wait for a world title, the only accolade that still eludes her, goes on, although this bronze means she now has five major medals in as many years at just 23.
The pair became the first British middle-distance runners to share a podium at an Olympics or World Championships since Seb Coe and Steve Cram at Los Angeles in 1984 – fittingly both men were in the stadium.
Unfortunately for the pair, it was Lilian Odira who had the fastest finish, rounding Hodgkinson down the home straight to claim gold for Kenya in one minute 54.62s, a championship record.
Hunter Bell said of her finish: “That’s racing. Looking at these champs, I looked at the men’s marathon and saw what that came down to (Tanzania’s Alphonce Simbu won in a photo finish). I’m no stranger to a dip. Last year in Paris, it was very fine margins for the medals.
“We were actually talking about it in the warm-up area with some of the physios, they were saying ‘what would you do? Do you dive? Do you throw the arm? Do you just like put your ponytail first’?
“It was coming into my mind in the final few steps, just trying to get there as quickly as you can. I did think for a moment I was going to win it. But I felt really good in the race, so I’m really happy.”
For Hodgkinson, the golden girl of British athletics, this is a setback, but one that is not entirely surprising after a season wrecked by hamstring injuries where she had run just twice all year before arriving in Japan.
She was still the favourite, but perhaps not as overwhelming as last summer, going as far as to describe her year as a ‘s***-show’. Even this week, a stomach bug has been affecting her, although she refused to blame it for the defeat.
Hodgkinson seemed to have judged the race well, battling with defending champion Mary Moraa to hit the front. But in a fast race – Hunter Bell ran a lifetime best of 1.54.90 to go second all-time among Brits – she did not quite have the juice in the legs to finish it off.
Hodgkinson said: “I think if you told me back in June that I would even be here running a 1:54 in the final, I’d probably say no. I was not even in spikes so putting it into perspective, it’s nothing to be too disappointed about.
“I am happy for G to come down to the 800. For me, she is the best 1500-800 runner out there in the world. To have her as the standard to get back really helped me.
“I think when you look at some of the greats in all sports, there’s years where they haven’t done as well or they’ve missed podiums or they’ve missed a complete year. Somehow, I’ve managed to stay on that trajectory which I think is incredible.
“At the end of my career, I think people will remember what you’ve won, not what you’ve lost. This will just go down as part of my journey and on reflection, I’ll be happy.”
Odira’s emergence completes a clean sweep for Kenya’s women over middle and long-distance running, winning every race from 800m up to the marathon, along with the 3000m steeplechase.
It is another of those Kenyans, 1500m champion Faith Kipyegon, who may decide whether Hunter Bell and Hodgkinson’s rivalry endures, or whether the older of the pair returns to the longer distance in which she won Olympic bronze last summer.
Hunter Bell added: “I was just happy to get an upgrade from last year. Everyone was giving me a hard time, saying ‘why don’t you do 15, why don’t you do 15?’ And I felt like I’ve got something to show in the eight. The girls are too good, you can’t go into it half-baked and expect to be the best in the world or get up and come out with a medal.
“Now it depends on what Faith Kipyegon wants to do. If she decides to move up [to 5000m] I would love to go into 1500m thinking I can win it. Being a 1.54 800m runner, I think hopefully would put me in a really good position to win 1500s. But I am happy that I decided to just put all my eggs into the basket for the 800.”
The final day had been pegged as the big one for GB and NI, but aside from the women’s 800m, the other medal shots all fell short.
George Mills was never in contention over 5000m, as Cole Hocker earned redemption for his 1500m disqualification to claim gold, while Morgan Lake started strongly in the high jump before the rain started pouring and she failed three times at 1.97m, finishing seventh.
In the relays, the men’s 4x400m quartet were always up against it with individual duo Sam Reardon and Matt Hudson-Smith both ruled out, and they duly came in sixth.
Finally, the women’s 4x100m, featuring 200m silver medallist Amy Hunt, had dreamed of gold but ended up in fourth as Melissa Jefferson-Wooden completed the hat-trick of titles over 100m, 200m and the relay with the States. Jamaica, in Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce’s final race, took silver, with Germany in bronze.
That means GB and NI finish these Worlds without a gold medal for the first time since 2003 in Paris – that was also the last year they failed to win a relay medal.
The total haul of five medals matches Doha six years ago, with British bosses admitting that the rest of the world has started to up their investment in relays, while vowing to bounce back from this disappointment.
Performance director Paula Dunn said: “What we’re seeing now across the nations is that everybody’s investing in relays. Everybody, the Dutch, the Germans. For me, it’s like the marginal advantage we had has gone. We have now got to really focus in on it.”
Dunn acknowledged the overriding disappointment from these Championships, even if she believes it can serve the team well in the build-up to the 2027 Worlds in Beijing and the Olympics in Los Angeles a year later.
She said: “Disappointment is sometimes a good thing. Because we have now got an opportunity to put things right. For the next year for the Europeans and Commonwealth Games. And then come back to Beijing.
“This is a dress rehearsal because this climate is intense. We want to be one of the best nations. But sometimes you have those years where it’s a rebuild year.”
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