3 hours ago
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Amid a gold rush for the ages, one image became instantly seared on the mind: Georgia Hunter Bell, Molly Caudery and Keely Hodgkinson jumping in pure delirium, before screaming like banshees as they revelled in surely the greatest night for British athletics since the London 2012 Olympics.
You could hear them high in the stands in Torun. And, one hopes, even louder in homes up and down the land. For across 29 enthralling minutes they delivered echoes of Super Saturday with three brilliant world indoor championship gold medals one after another. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Spectacular Sunday began in dramatic style with Hunter Bell hauling in the Ethiopian Girke Haylom, who was 20 metres ahead of the field at one point, before powering clear to take 1500m gold.
Then 15 minutes later Caudery, who was so sick on Sunday morning that she feared she would have to pull out, finished a flawless competition by clearing 4.85m to take pole vault gold.
And then came the icing on the cake as Hodgkinson proved again that she is track and field’s alpha female by leading from gun to tape. Incredibly her time of 1min 55.30sec was the second fastest time indoors ever – behind only her world record last month.
It didn’t take long for British joy to compound and multiply. First Hodgkinson ran towards Hunter Bell, who is her training partner, to ask how she had done. Incredibly she didn’t know because she had been focused on her event. “Gold,” came the reply.
That brought the first scream. But more was to follow when Caudery rushed to join them, accompanied by a phalanx of photographers. Asked what they all said to each other, Caudery said: “We were so excited we just screamed.”
What an advert for this sport, with three British woman on top of the world. And with such extraordinary stories too.
In 2017, for instance, Hunter Bell quit a promising track career because her body was broken. But in 2022 she started running again with a parkrun on a cold March day in Bushy Park, south-west London. Two years later, aged 30, she was Olympic bronze medallist. Now, at 32, she is a world champion.
“I just thought be patient,” said Hunter Bell, who finished in 3min 58.53sec, nearly a second ahead of Australia’s Jessica Hull, who took silver in 3:59.54. “I backed myself. To get my first gold medal makes me really happy.”
Caudery, meanwhile, has spent two painful years battling injuries and mishaps since winning world indoor gold in Glasgow in 2024. Last September at the world championship she rupturing ligaments in her ankle in the warm up, left in a wheelchair and was told her ankle might never recover fully. Now she is back where she belongs.
“You wouldn’t believe the last six months I have had,” she said, after beating Slovenia’s Tina Sutej into silver. “ Even six weeks ago, I couldn’t get off the ground and this wasn’t in my sight. And I woke up this morning ill and not even knowing if I was going to be able to jump.”
And then there was Hodgkinson. After the Paris Olympics, she did not race for 376 days because of three hamstring injuries, the last of which came after an eight-hour round trip to Windsor Castle to collect her MBE in May.
At times she got so frustrated that one of her coaches, Trevor Painter, got her a Himalayan salt lamp to try to calm her down. But after five months of interrupted training she is better than ever.
Victory came in classic Hodgkinson fashion. She charged to the front after the break before the end of the first lap, and applied the squeeze until her opponent’s pips started to squeak.
She was through halfway in a lightning quick 56.96sec and while her main rival, Aubrey Werro, was still just about in striking distance, Hodgkinson powered home to take gold, with the Swiss athlete taking silver in 1:56.64.
”I wanted to let loose, and make everyone work, work hard,” said Hodgkinson. “And who knows, maybe on another day, without two races in my legs, I would have had the world record again.”
This victory means the Hodgkinson has now has a full set of major medals: Olympics, world and Europeans, indoors and out, and Commonwealth Games. It made it some night for her, as well as Hunter Bell, Caudery and British Athletics.
Back in 2012 it had Mo, Jess and Greg. Now they have the good fortune to have Keely, Georgia and Molly. The good times are here again.
