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

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

The real contenders followed her, everyone else dropped back. But she still clearly had so much left in the tank.

By the time she finished the final turn and went into her kick, it was a wrap. No one was catching her. Hodgkinson won her first gold medal with a time of 1:56.72.

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

USA’s Juliette Whittaker, in her first-ever final, finished seventh at 1:58.50. She was the only American to make the final.

This is Hodgkinson’s first major international championship, having won silver in the Tokyo Games and in both the 2022 and 2023 World Championships. It came without her main competition in the 800 meters. America’s Athing Mu, who fell at the U.S. Olympic trials, didn’t qualify for the Olympics.

It robbed the event of a truly competitive final as, it turns out, Hodgkinson with no equal. She was the clear class of the field.

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(Photo: James Lang / USA Today)