A special 45 minutes
People still talk about “Super Saturday”, that Saturday evening in the London 2012 Olympics, when in the space of an hour Mo Farah, Greg Rutherford and Jess Ennis won gold medals. In Torun on Sunday evening, in 45 minutes, training partners Georgia Hunter Bell, Keely Hodgkinson, and Molly Caudery all won gold medals.
There was great anticipation from a British perspective. It was a very mixed GB team -27 athletes, but 9 of them in their first senior International championship. Many were here for the experience – nothing wrong with that – and several potential medalists had chosen not to do an indoor session. After all, as Chase Jackson told us earlier in the weekend, an indoor season can cut into your winter break!
First up was Molly Caudery, Word Indoor Champion in 2024, before no-heighting at the Paris Olympics. She went to the Tokyo World Championships only to get injured in the warm-up. To say that her confidence had taken a knock was an understatement. In Torun, you would never have known! Thirteen vaulters made for a long competition. Molly progressed from 4.35 (a deliberately low starting bar to build her confidence) to 4.80 with a perfect card. Then there were two. Tina Sutej had also reached 4.80 with no failures. Molly cleared 4.85 at the second attempt. Tina had three failures.
Molly said afterwards, “Six weeks ago, I couldn’t get off the ground, and I was in a dark place. Today, to come here and do this means more than anyone knows, after Paris and after Tokyo and after last year, it’s just a relief. I’ve got a great team around me, and that makes a huge difference. Coming back from Tokyo was hard, not just physically but mentally. It felt so good, I haven’t enjoyed jumping so much in such a long time. It was just happy to be at 4.80 with Tina, but it was great to get the outright win.”
Georgia Hunter-Bell went in the 1500. Ethiopian Birke Haylom went out fast and opened up a big lead, but paid the price as the others reeled her in. Hunter Bell won in a world-leading 3:58.53. Behind her, Jessica Hull ran an Area Record, Agathe Guillemot a national record, Nikki Hiltz a PR – none of them enough to get near Georgia.
Georgia said afterwards: “I really wanted to cope with the pressure of being the favourite and get it done, I’ve failed at that before. I am just really happy with how the race went – start to finish. I was really inspired seeing Josh get it done yesterday. I was in the stadium to watch. I much prefer a fast race. When I caught Haylom, I knew I could win. I made a great decision to just speed up and close the gap. I am really glad I made that decision in a split second”.
Keely Hodgkinson had broken the World Record a month ago and was the hottest favourite on the program. She won in 1:55.30 from Audrey Werro (National record) and Addison Wiley (PR). As she had a spare hour after the race, Kelly popped back and ran a relay leg! She summed up the experience: “It feels so, so nice being able to run and win. This is my first world title. I have been in so many finals, I have been a favourite so many times, and I have not won – so to do that and prove to myself that I can do it, remove the pressure and win the gold, it’s nice. I just ran a 50-second split in the relay, and I am actually so impressed with myself. I really wanted to do it. I have an amazing training group. Georgia and I work hard, and we push each other at every practice – we are both in the shape of our lives. It’s great to have someone who can challenge me in training. I am really grateful for our friendship, our rivalry and our training.”
