Asher-Smith bounces back from Paris low with time worthy of Olympic bronze

Dina Asher-Smith bounced back from her 100m disappointment at the Paris games to produce a blistering season’s best time of 10.88sec in her Diamond League victory in Lausanne — a mark that would have earned bronze in the Olympic final.
Asher-Smith was left “shocked and disappointed” in Paris after her failure to qualify for the final denied her the chance to claim the first individual Olympic medal of her career.
But she was back to her best in Switzerland, finishing well ahead of Daryll Neita in seventh, her fellow Briton who was the fourth-fastest woman in Paris.
“After the Olympics I took some time to refocus and now I’m just enjoying running, feeling fit and [being] injury free,” said Asher-Smith, who also won the 4x100m relay alongside Amy Hunt, Desiree Henry and Bianca Williams.
• Dina Asher-Smith interview: ‘Football problems end sprinters’ careers – super shoes will extend mine’
There were plenty of positives for British athletes in Lausanne. Chief among them was Matthew Hudson-Smith, who narrowly missed out on gold in the 400m in Paris but on Thursday saw off the challenge from Muzala Samukonga, of Zambia, to finish first by a tenth of a second.
“My goal is to win the Olympic gold and to be mentioned alongside Michael Johnson and Jeremy Wariner,” he said. “It’s all about consistency, winning and never giving up. I want to consistently be one of the best ever.”
Georgia Bell, the Olympic 1,500m bronze medallist, and Jemma Reekie put in fine displays in the 800m, finishing second and third respectively, but could not match Kenya’s Mary Moraa, who won bronze behind Keely Hodgkinson over the distance in Paris.
Elsewhere, Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen went some way to forgetting his Olympic blip in the 1,500m when he beat American Cole Hocker, who shocked the world in Paris with a surprise gold.
After much fanfare over Ingebrigtsen’s rivalry with the Scot Josh Kerr before the Games, the Norwegian slumped to a disappointing fourth-placed finish as Hocker, Kerr and Yared Nuguse of the US passed him in the closing metres.
Ingebrigtsen did, however, rebound to win the Olympic 5,000m title and took another big step to redemption over the shorter distance with a dominant victory in Laussane, fending off a late charge from Hocker to claim victory in a meet record of 3min 27.83sec.
Keely Hodgkinson has called time on the season of her life after her post-Olympic parade was curtailed by a flare-up of the injury that sidelined her last winter.
The 800m champion, GB’s solitary athletics gold medal winner in Paris, had been due to run a 400m in Berlin on Sunday week before rounding off the season with two 800m Diamond League races in Zurich and Brussels.
She had high hopes of clocking a 400m best and a personal best time in her favoured distance, but said on social media: “No more races for me. Unfortunately, I picked up a small injury, but we achieved everything I had hoped to do this year. Thank you for the love and support.”
In the first flush of victory, Hodgkinson, 22, had even contemplated closing in on one of athletics’ oldest world records. Jarmila Kratochvilova’s time of 1min 53.28sec has stood for 41 years. Those early 1980s times remain shrouded in scepticism with Nadezhda Olizarenko, of the then Soviet Union, the only other woman to have broken 1:54.
Hodgkinson is the sixth fastest of all time after running 1:54.61 in London in July, but she was keen to improve that before signing off for the year.
“I would love to see how fast I can go before the end of the season because I’ve got myself in this shape,” she told the Times after claiming gold. “I don’t want to waste it.”
Her husband-and-wife coaching team, Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows, both felt there was more to come. In Paris, Meadows said: “Trevor and I believe she is in the shape to be third of all time. We believe she can run high-1:53 at the moment. Over the next couple of years she can get down towards that world record if she stays healthy, motivated and still enjoys it, which I have got no doubts about.”
Hodgkinson, herself, said in France: “It’s definitely a goal. I’d love to give it a good go. There’s more in there. When you’re at the top of your game, why not? After doing something so big as the Olympics, the rest of the summer can feel like a drag, but we’ll see what the legs have got in them. After the 1:54, training got better and better and there were sessions that indicated there was so much more there.”
That will now have to wait, but she has been through injuries before. Last November, she tore a knee ligament, which saw her miss the indoor season, but that proved “a blessing” as it forced her to focus on power and technique. Her training regime remains markedly different to many 800m runners, with much lower mileage and no reps longer than 600m. The emphasis is on speed, with more endurance to be added in the coming years. Hence, the team’s belief the world record could go. Painter said the injury was not as serious as last year but would get worse if they did not shut the season down now.
In the short term her absence means Hodgkinson will miss out on the chance to retain her Diamond League title, where she had been second in the standings to GB team-mate Jemma Reekie. The winners of the season-long event will be decided at the finale in Brussels in September.
Assuming there are no complications, Hodgkinson, who attended the Team GB homecoming in Manchester on Saturday, will be expected back on track next February, before the European Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands. Hodgkinson won that title in Istanbul in 2023. The main target, though, is the World Championships in Tokyo in September. By that time her rivalry with Athing Mu, the 2021 Olympic champion who missed Paris after falling at the trials, could be in full, fabulous flow.