Keely Hodgkinson offered a blunt assessment of her feelings after graciously conceding European 800m gold to Swiss rival Audrey Werro and settling for silver on home soil.
After days of controversy over empty seats, Birmingham finally delivered a capacity crowd, no doubt drawn to the Alexander Stadium to watch the Olympic champion and the three other fastest women in Europe clash in the most hotly-anticipated race of the championships – if not the season.
Werro, the favourite before she fell in the semi-final and was controversially advanced, overtook Hodgkinson on the back straight in the first lap and never relinquished her lead after 200m, winning in a championship-record one minute and 54.81 seconds, and bronze went to the Netherlands’ Femke Broeders-Bol.
“I don’t want it to be easy,” said Hodgkinson, who experienced her own knee-scraping freak fall in training before the Prefontaine Classic.
“We’re all going to win some, lose some. S*** happens. Audrey fell over yesterday, she did amazing to bounce back. I know what that took out of me a few weeks ago. So yeah, incredible to her. And, yeah, life goes on. I’ll go back and train, and just hope I get it next time.”
Hodgkinson, who set a new indoor 800m world record in March, had insisted before this race that Birmingham gold would mean almost as much as her Olympic title at Paris two years ago.
She said: “Yeah, that last 50m, I really thought I had it. But she’s a strong athlete. Sometimes you want it so much, and sometimes in terms of real parts it might just not be enough.”
Werro, who like Hodgkinson is targeting the 43-year-old women’s 800m world record, has enjoyed a spectacular season, flawless outdoors before the Birmingham semi-final.
That included her shock victory over Hodgkinson in Stockholm – despite a national record from the Briton – to move third on the women’s 800m all-time list, then lowered her personal best to 1:53.80 a few weeks later.
Two-time world 400m hurdles champion Broeders-Bol entered Birmingham with just four professional outdoor 800m races under her belt, having debuted at the Ostrava Golden Spike in June and was a dark horse.
Hodgkinson added: “It doesn’t sting because I was beaten by a great athlete. I think I put together a pretty good race. I don’t think I did anything wrong.
“The thing about the 800m is you have a million different ways it could go in your head. Nobody really knew, so you have to think on your feet, but I think I covered every move well. I just didn’t have enough.”
Earlier, Zharnel Hughes had to settle for silver in the men’s 200m final behind Germany’s Owen Ansah.
Ansah clinched gold with a time of 19.95, while Hughes followed him home in 20.16s and the bronze medal was shared by Fausto Desalu and Timothe Mumenthaler.
Ansah is a controversial winner as he faces possible sanctions by the National Anti Doping Agency of Germany for alleged whereabouts failures, but the German has denied any wrongdoing.
