Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson closed out the final event of the Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais Trophée EDF on Thursday with a roar as she shattered the women’s indoor 800m world record in 1:54.87.
Hodgkinson’s dramatic win capped an evening of new world leads and a pair of meet records as the season quickly shifts to the World Athletics Indoor Championships in a month.
But the height of the action came as Hodgkinson powered her way past Audrey Werro in an 800m showdown that drew buzz heading into the event with the two likely to cross paths again on the European circuit. Hodgkinson took the win in emphatic fashion in this instance, with Werro keeping pace through the first two laps.
Hodgkinson head steady with the pacer through 200m at 26.80 and by the halfway point at 56.01, she didn’t seem ready to make a deceive move to attempt to break from Werro. But at 600m at 1:25.06 with just two laps remaining, Hodgkinson was locked in on turning her attention to taking down the record with Werro behind by more than a second.
At the bell lap, Hodgkinson stayed with the pace lights on the track and fed on the energy of the crowd in Lievin to guide her to the win and new record at the distance.
Werro finished second in 1:58.38 and while Tsige Duguma took third in 1:58.83.
“I felt like it was going to happen today — it was just a matter of how fast can I go,” Hodgkinson said after the race. “It was pretty hard, that last lap, to really push to try to do the [pace] light as much as I can. I’m super happy.”
The mark is 0.95-second improvement over Jolanda Ceplak’s 1:55.82 from March 3, 2002 in Vienna which coincidentally is the same date Hodgkinson was born.
In other action from Lievin, the records were not limited to Hodgkinson, as Jessica Hull dashed to a 5:26.69 win in the women’s 2,000m for a world lead as she pulled close to breaking Genzebe Dibaba’s 5:23.75 mark from 2017. Salomé Afonso was second in a European record 5:30.31 while Agathe Guillemot took third in 5:32.18.
Meanwhile, Freweyni Hailu dominated the women’s 3,000m in 8:24.59 for the world lead at the distance as she took off on an aggressive start that nearly put the race out of reach by the halfway point as Aleshign Baweke fought to maintain position. Baweke would ultimately take second in 8:26.29, while Nadia Battocletti ran an Italian record of 8:26.44 to finish third.
Emmanouil Karalis soared to the first 6-meter height of the year in the men’s pole vault, clearing the 6.00m on his sixth try for the world lead. Karalis failed to jump 6.07m but still grabbed the win. Sondre Guttormsen was second and Zachery Bradford finished third, with both clearing 5.90m on their fifth attempts for their season bests.
In the men’s triple jump, Yasser Triki leaped to a 17.35m world lead on his final attempt, grabbing the win over Jordan Scott who finished second with 17.11m and Lázaro Martínez who took third with 16.71m.
