Sign up to our free sport newsletter for all the latest news on everything from cycling to boxing
Sign up to our free sport email for all the latest news
The fact that Keely Hodgkinson still gets a headache from the heats should be comforting to Phoebe Gill as she navigates the same narrative arc.
The 800m favourite Hodgkinson increasingly casts a spell over her rivals and she was unchallenged in her Olympic heat, winning it in a fairly brisk 1mins 59.31secs.
The 22-year-old has never come unstuck at the first hurdle of a major championships but still finds the early stages tough to negotiate.
“I don’t really like heats, they’re not my favourites,” said Hodgkinson.
“I feel like girls have stepped up this year because I looked at my heat and thought it was quite tough, actually, for a heat.
“The heats are worse than the final. In the final you just know you’re giving everything, but in the rounds you’ve got to contend with people giving their all, you’re trying to conserve energy and not make any mistakes.
“I’m definitely glad that’s done and the semis will be a bit more fun.”
Those words ought to be a salve to Gill, proof that experience is no match for nerves when it comes to progressing through the dreaded rounds.
Hodgkinson, Gill and Jemma Reekie all did so and the trio will race again in Sunday’s semi-finals.
They avoided a first tilt at the repechage round, a new and somewhat undesirable addition to the athletics programme, giving all but the top three finishers in each heat a second chance to advance to the semis.
Gill is the youngest woman ever to represent Team GB at 800 metres and the youngest in her sport since Moscow 1980.
The St Albans native’s sole aim on the start line of her heat was not to start crying and she took a series of big, deep breaths in order not to do so.
“There has been a lot of preparation coming into this,” said Gill. “I’ve had to think in my head about every kind of situation that can go wrong.
“That can cause me a lot of anxiety and I’m sure there are better ways to do it, but I guess that’s what I always resort to. I think of every outcome that could happen, be it falling over or going out too hard.”
Neither of those two nightmares came to pass but Gill was made to work to seal progression.
She was in the third heat and it turned out to be the quickest of the lot with Ethiopia’s Worknesh Mesele leading the field through the first lap in 57.4.
Gill was challenged by Italy’s Eloisa Coiro down the back straight and needed to run 1:58.83 to take the second automatic qualification spot, a shade outside the time she clocked to claim victory at the UK Athletics Championships.
“It was very fast, I was getting a bit worried at 600m that I was going to have to run the repechage but I am happy that I found in my legs to qualify in third,” said Gill.
“I’m so used to front running in my races, but against these professionals, you have to be on your game constantly.”
For Gill, making the final would be a great success and she would be the youngest athlete to do so in the women’s 800m in 96 years.
The bar is set a little higher for Hodgkinson for whom nothing else but gold will do after three successive silvers at global level.
“It’s a big crowd, I saw lots of British flags,” said Hodgkinson, who featured in National Lottery documentary Path to Paris: The Hunt for Gold in the build-up to the Games.
“It was a warm welcome from Paris and the track feels super quick. I think they’ve done an amazing job.”
With more than £30M a week raised for Good Causes, including vital funding into elite and grassroots sport, National Lottery players support our Olympic and Paralympic athletes to live their dreams and make the nation proud, as well as providing more opportunities for people to take part in sport. To find out more visit:www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk
Source: independent.co.uk
