Last Updated: 21/09/25 12:09pm
Great Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson and Georgia Hunter Bell win bronze and silver in World Athletics Championships 800m
Team GB pair Georgia Hunter Bell and Keely Hodgkinson finished second and third in a high-quality women’s 800m final at the World Championships.
Lilian Odira took the gold medal, overtaking the British pair at the last moment in Tokyo.
Hodgkinson led the race for long spells and a GB one-two looked on the cards until Odira blazed past the pair in 1:54.62, a new championship record.
Hunter-Bell ran a superb personal best of 1:54.90 to beat Olympic champion Hodgkinson by 0.01 seconds.
It was the first time a British pair have won two medals in the same event of the World Championships for 18 years.
Hodgkinson and Hunter Bell had to wait before screens inside the stadium showed the latter, who claimed 1500m bronze on her Olympic debut in Paris last summer, had gotten over the line faster by the finest of margins.
Hunter Bell had debated racing at both distances at these championships before deciding to focus on the 800m, and was even prep camp room-mates with bronze medallist Hodgkinson.
It was nevertheless a brave and determined showing for Hodgkinson, who just last month returned from a 376-day injury-plagued absence after becoming the Olympic champion.
