Defending champion Keely Hodgkinson effortlessly advanced through the fastest women’s 800m semi-final in the history of the European Athletics Championships, securing her place in Wednesday evening’s final in Rome.
The two-time world silver medalist and Tokyo Olympic silver medalist clocked a time of one minute 58.07 seconds, making her the fastest qualifier. However, her teammates Erin Wallace and Alex Bell did not make it to the final.
“This is way too early for me and less than 24 hours since the last race,” said Hodgkinson, 22.
“I felt good – I think today I wanted to be a bit more where I was comfortable with on the pace.
“A couple of the girls were saying thank you afterwards because they got PBs.”
The British quartet of Asha Philip, Amy Hunt, Dina Asher-Smith and Desiree Henry comfortably advanced to the women’s 4x100m relay final but the men’s team of CJ Ujah, Jona Efoloko, Richard Kilty and individual bronze medallist Romell Glave were eighth and last in their heat and will miss the final.
“It was horrendous, I don’t know what happened. We should never been running that slow,” said Kilty.
“That team on paper is a very very fast team, but something clearly went wrong. It is very disappointing as we wanted to come here and win. We are capable of winning.”