Britain won its first medal at this year’s World Athletics Championships as Laura Muir took bronze in a breathtakingly quick 1500metre final.
The double Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon, who Muir hailed the greatest middle-distance runner of all time, won a second world title as expected.
Only silver medallist Gudaf Tsegay and Muir could get close to Kipyegon’s time of 3:52.96 the next best finishing some six seconds back.
Muir, whose season had been curtailed by injury problems, had twice narrowly missed out on a medal at the Worlds. At London 2017 she finished fourth and at the Worlds in Doha in 2019 she was fifth.
But she defied a difficult start to 2022 with a hip injury which ruled her out for two months to clinch a world medal to follow a silver at last year’s Olympics.
Afterwards, the Briton said: “This is a World Championship final, you have got to expect it to be hard and be quick. The splits on that race were on an extra level. It does show if I can get under 3:55 under those kind of splits then there is a really fast time in there.
“I am so delighted. It was all about this [a medal], that was what I wanted. I took my time trying but I am so, so happy I got it. I had the most significant injury of my career this February. I didn’t run for two months. That’s the longest time I’ve had off running since starting but I had confidence in myself and my ability that we had time.
“This time last year I didn’t have any global outdoor medals and now I have two. This was the one that was bugging me. After I got the silver last year, I was like this is the year I am going to get it and I’ve got it. I am so pleased.”
In Doha in 2019, Katarina Johnson-Thompson was crowned world champion after the performance of her lifetime. In Eugene, she had to make do with eighth place in the heptathlon as Nafi Thiam took gold.
Johnson-Thompson’s build-up to the Tokyo Olympics had been hampered by an Achilles injury and then she injured her calf in the competition itself, and she readily admitted she was nowhere near back to her best a year on.
After finishing the heptathlon at the Worlds, she said: “It has been the toughest two years of my life. Mentally this year and physically last year for Tokyo. I can’t expect to come back straightaway.
“I am a bit of a dreamer and I thought it could have gone a bit differently but I am happy I am here and healthy and building back to where I want to be more than where I am right now. I just need to get more training in the bag. I need to get some consistency and I need to get some confidence back as well.”
Dina Asher-Smith bounced back from the disappointment of finishing an agonising fourth in the final of the 100m to qualify for the 200m semi-finals by finishing second in her heat in a time of 22.56seconds.
“I got instructions from my coach to make sure that I ran a smart race and conserved energy for the semi-finals tomorrow and the final in a few days,” she said. “I am very happy to have qualified, to have come out here and got through to the next round.
“Obviously, I’d have loved to have been on the podium for the 100m but I did some really good runs and I’m super proud of that. This is a different event and you have got to come ready with your A game.”
