Ever since she stormed to Olympic 800m gold at Paris 2024, Keely Hodgkinson has not been able to avoid the limelight.  

But her training partner Georgia Hunter-Bell, despite winning bronze over 1500m at the Olympics, seemed to have gone under the radar. That was until September’s World Athletics Championships.

For months, Hunter-Bell had been toying with the idea of running the 800m, the 1500m or maybe even both in Tokyo.

The former would mean she would be racing against her training partner – Olympic champion Hodgkinson – but when decision time rolled around, the 800m it was as the ultimate showdown was set up.

The British duo eased through the heats and semi-finals, finally reaching their judgement day, on the very last day of the competition.  

Hodgkinson took the lead, just as she had in Paris the year prior, with Hunter-Bell on her shoulder, but neither saw the Kenyan, Lilian Odira, who swooped round them.

Hunter-Bell had followed the Kenyan through, going neck and neck with the favourite for gold and forcing a lactic fuelled dip for the line.  

It went down to photo finish as the pair waited anxiously, but Hunter-Bell had done it, she won silver and beat her training partner Hodgkinson.  

She had gone from quitting the sport in 2017 before giving it another go during the pandemic in 2020, to winning another global medal at 31 years old.