For Keely Hodgkinson, the expectation was already there. With her main rival, the reigning Olympic champion, Athing Mu, not defending her 800m title in Paris, the British three-time global silver medallist had been primed to step up to win gold. But now what? In treating the London Diamond League crowd to the fastest 800m time since Caster Semenya in 2018, she has seemingly made Olympic gold a formality. Illness or injury-permitting, surely no one else can compete with her.
That weight of expectation is something her compatriot Matthew Hudson-Smith must also contend with after obliterating his own European 400m record to move to the top of the world rankings.
