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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Sean Ingle at the National Stadium, Tokyo

Keely Hodgkinson escapes boredom to lift British spirits at world championships

Keely Hodgkinson after her 800m worlds semi-final
Keely Hodgkinson came through her heat to qualify comfortably for the 800m semi-finals at the world championships. Photograph: Hannah Peters/Getty Images

It has not been the greatest world championships for Britain so far, with only Jake Wightman’s 1500m silver medal lifting the gloom. But on Thursday the cavalry finally arrived in the form of Keely Hodgkinson.

The Olympic 800m champion has been so bored in her hotel in the 35c heat she has even taken to staging playful indoor races with her training partner, Georgia Hunter Bell. But she dusted off the cobwebs in qualifying comfortably for Friday’s semi-finals in 1min 59.79sec. “I don’t like the rounds,” she said. “They feel awful. It was not pretty or fast tonight but I am safely through.”

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