- Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson made a late start to her season after three hamstring tears in nine months
- Hodgkinson’s training partner Georgia Hunter Bell is dropping the 1500m in favour of the 800m
- Big threats from the likes of Audrey Werro, Tsige Duguma, Prudence Sekgodiso and Lilian Odira
Keely Hodgkinson had not raced for 376 days before taking to the start line for the 800m at the Diamond League meeting in Silesia, her last on-track outing having been the run to Olympic gold in Paris.
Any sense there might be some rust or injury concerns following three hamstring tears in the space of just nine months were duly pushed aside as she won that race with a world-leading 1:54.74. Then, just four days later, she was a race winner once more, on this occasion in Lausanne.
Her run in Silesia puts her more than a second clear at the top of the world list, and is the ninth-fastest run by anyone in history. The hope and expectation in Japan is that she can lower her personal best of of 1:54.61, though winning gold is of course the primary target.
She’s also hoping to lead a 1-2 finish from within her training camp.
Georgia Hunter Bell – who, like Hodgkinson, is coached by husband-and-wife team Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows – had considered doubling up over both middle-distance races. But she has sided with just the 800m over the 1500m, despite being the Olympic bronze medallist over the longer distance.
Her reasoning for the drop down in distance is understandable. She is the third quickest athlete in the world this year over 800m and produced a stunning kick at the Diamond League meeting in Stockholm to take an unexpected and comfortable win, leaving world champion Mary Moraa trailing in her wake.
The other rationale is the Faith Kipyegon effect, as the Kenyan looks virtually unbeatable over 1500m. The same could arguably be said about Hodgkinson, although Hunter Bell perhaps believes she has the potential to crack her training partner. As she put it in a recent interview: “I feel like in the 800m, if you make the final, anything can happen.”
Another medal at a major championships would mark an amazing ongoing turnaround for an athlete who quit the sport because of injuries back in 2017 and only tentatively returned to running during the Covid-19 pandemic starting with amateur runs before quickly climbing into the professional ranks.
For all Hunter Bell’s prowess, Hodgkinson remains the athlete to beat. Previously the bridesmaid of her sport behind both Athing Mu-Nikolayev and Moraa, both have faded in different ways.
Mu-Nikolayev didn’t reach the final at the US Championships after a serious downturn in fortunes. Kenya’s Moraa is still in the medal mix for the 800m in Tokyo, though her season’s best of 1:57.83 puts her 16th on this year’s world list, and she finished a distant ninth at the Prefontaine Classic in July, in what was her last outing over the distance.
Echoing Hunter Bell’s “anything can happen” in the 800m philosophy means it is hard to pick exactly where the medals will come from in the event.
The British duo will likely be challenged in their hopes for a 1-2 by Audrey Werro, a rising star in her native Switzerland who is sandwiched between Hodgkinson and Hunter Bell on the 2025 world list.
She won the European U23 title in convincing fashion, then won the Swiss title with a PB of 1:56.29 – a time she improved further when winning the Diamond League Final in 1:55.91 ahead of Hunter Bell.
Prudence Sekgodiso has already landed a global title this year, winning at the World Indoor Championships in March. She went on to set a PB of 1:57.16 to win in Ostrava, a time she then equalled in Eugene. More recently, she was sixth at the Diamond League meetings in Lausanne and Zurich.
Olympic silver medallist Tsige Duguma, the world indoor champion in 2024, is also one to watch. The Ethiopian hasn’t raced since July, but prior to that she won all three of her Diamond League outings this year, topped by a national record of 1:56.64 in Shaoxing.
Other potential protagonists include Kenya’s Lilian Odira, who was second to Hodgkinson in Silesia, Botswana’s Oratile Nowe, who has reduced her own national record to 1:56.76, and European bronze medallist Anais Bourgoin of France.
Matt Majendie for World Athletics