Keely Hodgkinson has withdrawn from the ladies’s 800m on the Zurich Diamond League this Thursday, occasion organisers confirmed by way of electronic mail on Monday afternoon.
“Unfortunately, the body isn’t quite ready to race again after the European Championships, we’ve made the decision to skip this race and get ready for the next one,” the British athlete mentioned in an announcement offered by Weltklasse Zurich.
This means Hodgkinson misses the showdown with Swiss athlete Audrey Werro, who beat her to European gold in Birmingham, England, nine days ago, which prevented the 24-year-old from claiming her third straight continental outside title.
Hodgkinson, Olympic champion and sixth-fastest all-time, has battled with accidents all through the previous few years. Repeat hamstring points restricted her racing in 2025, although she nonetheless ran the second-fastest 800m of any lady final yr (1:54.74s) and took bronze on the Tokyo World Championships off the again of solely two races on the circuit that summer time.
“I’m definitely a lot better than I was,” Hodgkinson advised media about her health on July 17, forward of the London Diamond League, the place she gained the 800m in 1:56.21s. In late June, a random fall throughout a cool-down — brought on by tripping over the nook of steel ground meshing — resulted in knee accidents. “It wasn’t pretty at all,” Hodgkinson mentioned within the pre-London press convention.
She nonetheless raced on the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, on July 4, and completed second in a time of 1:56.73s. “I did the best with what I could do. On reflection, I actually think it’s quite impressive,” Hodgkinson mentioned. “Maybe I shouldn’t have ran but I definitely don’t regret it.” Lilian Odira beat her at Hayward Field, a repeat of the world championship closing 10 months prior, when the Kenyan took gold forward of Hodgkinson and her coaching accomplice, Georgia Hunter-Bell, the silver medallist.
Switzerland’s Werro gained gold within the 800m on the European Championships earlier this month. (Fabrice Coffrini / AFP by way of Getty Images)
Odira and Hunter-Bell are additionally scheduled to race the 800m in Zurich, as is Femke Broeders-Bol, the previous world champion 400m hurdler. In her debut season over two laps the Dutchwoman took bronze on the European Championships and completed second behind Werro on the Lausanne Diamond League on Friday, setting a new national record time of 1:55.41s.
It is anticipated that Hodgkinson will compete on the Diamond League finals — hosted in Brussels at the beginning of September —with Werro, Broeders-Bol and Odira all half of the ladies’s 800m. One week after that’s the inaugural version of the World Athletics Ultimate Championships in Budapest, for which Hodgkinson (as Olympic champion), Odira (world champion) and Werro (primarily based on world rating) are all eligible.
Werro set to proceed dominant season
It’s an actual disgrace to not see one other contest between Werro and Hodgkinson, contemplating how memorable their 4 conferences this yr have been.
The first was again in February in Lievin, France, when Hodgkinson broke the world indoor report that had stood since her day of beginning in 2002, working 1:54.87s, nearly a second quicker than the earlier finest mark. Werro, 22, was second that day, greater than three seconds behind Hodgkinson, and people ending positions repeated at world indoors in March as Hodgkinson added an indoor world title to her Olympic crown from 2024. Her 1:55.31s time gained the race by greater than a second, with the Briton bettering the 27-year-old championship report.
The outside season, although, has been dominated by Werro, who has gained 12 occasions from 13 races this summer time together with Diamond League wins in Lausanne, Paris, Rabat and Stockholm. In the Swedish capital, she beat Hodgkinson for the primary time thanks to her finishing kick, working 1:53.98s for victory — the third-fastest all time and the very best efficiency for 43 years, since Jarmila Kratochvilova’s world report in 1983, which Werro is now inside one second of (1:53.28s).
The crowning second for Werro got here in Birmingham when she demolished the European Championship report from 1982 to earn her first senior worldwide gold medal, within the course of handing Hodgkinson her first defeat in a continental closing.