Hunter Bell delighted to beat roommate Hodgkinson

Georgia Hunter Bell had been through the permutations in her mind.

- PAUL EDDISON

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.