Athing Mu and Keely Hodgkinson have shared words of encouragement in waiting rooms before, but all was quiet in the bowels of the Tokyo Olympic Stadium before the women’s 800m final last summer. Mu needed to “lock in” and focus on how she would approach the biggest race of her life. The American 19-year-old went out and controlled the final from start to finish to win Olympic gold, as Hodgkinson gave chase down the home straight to earn silver.
Afterwards the tension faded away and the teenage duo hugged and heralded a new era of middle-distance running. “Maybe there was a little rivalry after Keely ran the Under-20 indoor record,” admitted Mu in a joint-interview as she reflected on Hodgkinson’s explosion on to the scene a few months earlier. “I was like: ‘Hmm, I need that!’”
