Nineteen-year-old Keely Hodgkinson won a sensational 800m silver medal at the Olympic Games in a new British record of one minute 55.88 seconds as US teenager Athing Mu took gold.
Hodgkinson looked shocked by her achievement, saying “that is mental” in response to being told she was an Olympic silver medallist.
Great Britain came close to bronze too, but Jemma Reekie was edged out by American Raevyn Rogers by 0.09s.
Mu, also 19, finished in 1:55.21.
She became the first American to win the women’s 800m since Madeline Manning in 1968, breaking the US record in the process.
“I am pretty speechless right now,” Britain’s Hodgkinson said after breaking a national record set by Kelly Holmes in 1995 and winning Team GB’s first track medal of Tokyo 2020.
“Kelly Holmes is a legend and I looked up to her. I have been speaking to her for the past couple of days and she is a lovely person.
“I want to thank my amazing team, my family who have made so many sacrifices for me.
“I think it is just one of those things where you know something like that is possible but whether it comes out you just don’t know. It was such a good race.
“I wanted to put it all out there and I did that. It is going to take a couple of days to sink in.”
