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Her triumph was achieved with an astounding lack of fuss. At no point was there a thought that anyone other than Hodgkinson might win.
Having sat contentedly in the middle of the pack for the opening lap, she only decided to start making headway entering the back straight for the second time. Having edged her way into third place, she then hit the front with 200m remaining, held the inside line rounding the final bend and powered away without a care in the world. Where her rivals were huffing, puffing and failing to make any headway, Hodgkinson looked serenely calm.
Her victory was achieved in one minute 59.04 seconds – her slowest outside of heats all year – with France’s Renelle Lamote taking silver in 1-59.49. Anna Wielgosz, of Poland, claimed bronze, as Reekie faded from second to fifth in the closing stages.
There was some thought that Hodgkinson might appear laboured here, which would have been entirely justified after a packed summer that has seen her make three major podiums.
“I’ve just been told I didn’t smile enough today, but I’m tired, that’s why,” she said after a smooth semi-final win in Munich. “I’m definitely on the home straight now.”
That race had seen her spare the athletics authorities’ blushes by knocking out two high-profile drugs cheats, Ukraine’s double reigning European champion Nataliia Krol and Turkey’s Ekaterina Guliyev, who are in their first season back from doping bans.
Under her previous name of Ekaterina Poistogova, and representing the country of her birth, Guliyev was caught up in the Russian state-sponsored doping scandal when caught admitting to taking drugs in secret recordings. The World Anti-Doping Agency said she should be banned for life, but she only received a two-year suspension.
When Russia were kicked out of the sport, she then did not run outside of the country from 2015 to 2021, only to re-emerge this summer having switched allegiance to Turkey and taken the surname of her second husband, former world 200m champion Ramil Guliyev.
Krol also achieved success under her previous name of Nataliya Pryshchepa, winning the European title in 2016 and 2018, before serving a 20-month ban for the masking agent hydrochlorothiazide. She blamed it on medication taken for high blood pressure that she suddenly suffered while having a manicure.
Hodgkinson can legitimately hide behind the naivety of youth when confronted with such issues, insisting “I don’t really know history or anything” when asked about her vanquished rivals’ indiscretions.
She has instead cemented her place at the forefront of a new era for 800m running, beaten at major championships over the past year only by fellow 20-year-old Athing Mu, and Kenya’s Mary Moraa, 22.
While European gold is a box that she has now ticked, beating Mu remains the reason she works so hard in training every day. At the Olympics, the gap between them was 0.67sec, with Hodgkinson reducing it to just 0.08sec in last month’s thrilling world battle. Their battles will continue next year.
Reekie, who finished agonisingly close to a medal in fourth at last year’s Olympics, has endured a torrid time after struggling to shake off the effects of contracting glandular fever in February, failing to make the world or Commonwealth finals and having to concede there are days when the lethargy is too great and she is unable to train alongside a group that includes Laura Muir.
Turning for home, it looked as though she might chase Hodgkinson into a medal position, but it was a quest too far.
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