Keely Hodgkinson made a winning return to action at the Diamond League in Poland in her first race since the Paris Olympics.
The 23-year-old Olympic champion was back in action following a 376-day absence and showed she has put her hamstring issues behind her by setting a new 800m meeting record of one minute and 54.74 seconds.
Hodgkinson sustained a hamstring injury in February before the Keely Klassic and her return was delayed by a number of setbacks.
But the Great Britain athlete made a statement ahead of next month’s World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.
Hodgkinson finished clear of Lilian Odira from Kenya and Botswana’s Oratile Nowe in Silesia with the second fastest time of her career, just 0.13 seconds off her personal best.
Hodgkinson told the BBC: “That was so much fun. It’s amazing, I really wanted to have this opportunity.
“I don’t have much time to get ready for the Worlds, so I have to put something down.”
Elsewhere, Kishane Thompson laid down a marker when the Jamaican came out on top in the highly-anticipated 100 metres against Olympic champion Noah Lyles.
Thompson blasted out of the blocks and never looked like being beaten, while Lyles, with his typically slow start, ran strongly at the end but the Jamaican won in 9.87 seconds, with Lyles clocking 9.90, his season’s best. Kenny Bednarek was third.
Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon produced an outstanding run in searing heat to fall just under a second shy of the women’s 3,000m world record of 8:06.11, set in 1993 by China’s Wang Junxia
PA
