The Brit runs 1:54.87, almost a second off Yolanda Czeplak’s 2002 mark.
Keely Hodgkinson fulfilled her destiny when she smashed Jolanda Czeplak’s world record of 1:55.82 to 1:54.87 at the World Indoor Tour Gold in Lieu on Thursday (19 February).
The 23-year-old was born on the same day, March 3, 2002, that Czeplak set the mark and for some time felt that she was destined to beat the record.
after improving his own British record to 1:56.33 last weekend In Birmingham, he looked so easily in the form of his life and broke the record in the 800m master class in the French city.
As we predicted our preview for the matchCzeplak’s record was living on borrowed time and was almost certain to fall in Liewyn. The big question, however, was how much Hodgkinson could shave off the record.
Pacemaker Anna Griek led the 200m in 26.50, with Hodgkinson hot on her heels in 26.80, with Switzerland’s Audrey Verreau close behind. After Griek took the 400m in 55.58 (Hodgkinson 56.01), the Brit immediately took the lead and dropped Verreau in this third period as she went through the 600m in 85.06.
Vero paid for going bold on the pace, fading to 1:58.38, though he held on for second ahead of Ethiopia’s Tsige Duguma, who ran a more conservative 1:58.83.
However, Hodgkinson was a class apart as he stormed home in 1:54.87, not far off his British outdoor record of 1:54.61. His 100m splits were:
It means that Hodgkinson is now the only British woman who currently holds a world record in athletics, although three British men (Jonathan Edwards, triple jump, Mo Farah, one hour, Elliott Giles, road mile) hold world records.
“I’ve been very vocal about wanting to get it before,” Hodgkinson said last weekend. “I feel like that’s my record.
Czeplak set a record at the European Indoor Championships in Vienna after a close battle with host country Stefanie Graf of Austria. The Slovenian led from the start, covering the 200m in 28.34, the 400m in 57.34 and the 600m in 86.68 before finishing the final lap in 29.14.
The Slovenian later also served a doping ban from 2007-2009, while Graf was also banned for two years in 2010. With that in mind, many fans considered Hodgkinson the unofficial world record holder even before Thursday’s race.
Coincidentally, Jenny Meadows, who now trains Hodgkinson with her husband Trevor Painter, also ran the 800m at the 2002 European Indoor Championships, but did not finish her heat after reaching the 400m mark. Nicely, Meadows was one of the first to congratulate Hodgkinson at Leawin.
“Thank you for an amazing crowd,” Hodgkinson said after the race. “I could hear you the whole way.”
Hodgkinson now races over 400m in Glasgow on March 1 before her first World Indoor Championships in Poland on March 20-22. Moving into the outdoor season, Yarmila Kratochvilova’s outdoor world record of 1:53.28, set back in 1983, is certainly under threat as long as the Briton can avoid the injuries that have plagued her in recent seasons.
READ MORE. Kratochvilova’s immortal world record
In the women’s 2000m, Jess Hull narrowly missed out as she missed Genzebe Dibaba’s world record of 5:23.75 in 5:26.69. However, the Australian was an emphatic winner in the race as runner-up Salome Afonso of Portugal set a European record of 5:30.31.
In sixth, Reeve Walcott-Nolan clocked a British record of 5:35.87, beating Yvonne Murray’s 1993 mark of 5:40.86.
Hodgkinson’s training partner Georgia Hunter Bell won the women’s 1500m overnight in 4:00.21 from Birke Hailom (Ethiopian clocked 4:01.17) and Sharon Berhe, also of Ethiopia, who ran 4:01.51. Britain’s Gemma Rickey was fourth in a season’s best of 4:02.14.
The men’s 800m was not as hotly anticipated as the women’s, but Belgium’s Eliot Crestan impressed with a 1:43.91 victory. In race B, Ben Pattison finished third in 1:46.04 behind winner Alexander Stepanov of Germany who ran 1:45.89.
Elsewhere, the women’s 3000m was won by Frewaini Hailu in 8:24.59, followed by Ethiopia’s Aleshin Baveke in 8:26.29, as Nadia Battocletti set an Italian record of 8:26.44 in third, narrowly missing out on Laura Murry’s European record of 418.
On the field, Algerian Yasser Tricky is the world leader in the men’s triple jump at 17.35m.
