Keely Hodgkinson continued her remarkable return from injury as she smashed a 23-year-old meeting record in her last race before the World Championships. The Olympic champion won the 800 metres at Wednesday night's Diamond League event in Lausanne in a rapid 1min 55.69sec, despite wet conditions.
Hodgkinson's time bettered the previous Lausanne best of 1:56.25 set by Maria Mutola in 2002. It was the second fastest time in the world this year, behind only the 1:54.74 she ran in Silesia, Poland on Saturday in her first race since striking gold in Paris last summer.
'It was a shame about the weather, but I was really happy to run that in those conditions,' admitted a drenched Hodgkinson. The 23-year-old finished more than a second and a half clear of home favourite Audrey Werro, while British team-mate Georgia Hunter Bell was third in 1:57.55.
Hodgkinson will now not race again until the World Championships in Tokyo, starting on September 13, where she will head as huge favourite for gold, following silvers in 2022 and 2023. Her runs in Silesia and Lausanne were respectively the second and fourth fastest of her career, coming despite an injury-enforced 376-day absence after tearing both hamstrings.
'Things have gone really well,' added Hodgkinson. 'The body's a lot stronger. All I've done is train all year, so I'm definitely in a really good place physically.'
In other events, Dina Asher-Smith and Daryll Neita finished fifth and seventh in the women's 200m, while Zharnel Hughes was fifth in the men's 100m.
