But for 50 minutes or so after Werro\u2019s huge tumble, her part in it was in doubt as she trudged home in last place and the official results showed she was out. However she was reinstated into a 10-strong final after a video review showed that the back of her right foot made contact with the left hand of the French athlete Ana\u00efs Bourgoin with 120m to go.<\/p>\n
The effect of Bourgoin\u2019s hand was like a rugby tap-tackle and it sparked an extraordinary chain of events. First Werro was unable to get her back leg through and ended up crashing face-down on to the curb. Then her back legs clipped the Lithuanian Gabija Galvydyte, who also fell to the floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t remember what happened just before the fall,\u201d said Werro. \u201cI felt that the race was quite busy behind and then a fall happened. I\u2019m OK, I just have a few scratches.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Werro crossed the line last in 2min 35.35sec it looked like she was out \u2013 only for her and Galvydyte to be reinstated on appeal. Far in front of her was Britain\u2019s Jemma Reekie who crossed the line first in 1:58.61, and was quick to comfort Werro when she slowly trudged over the line holding her chest.<\/p>\n
There were no such problems for Hodgkinson, who won the other semi-final in 1:57.38, just ahead of Broeders-Bol.<\/p>\nKeely Hodgkinson (right) had a much less eventful semi-final, winning ahead of Femke Broeders-Bol (left) \u2013 both qualified for the final.<\/span> Photograph: Andrew Boyers\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAsked whether she saw Werro fall, Hodgkinson said: \u201cI heard the \u2018oooh\u2019 which is never a good sign, I don\u2019t know what it looked like. You can\u2019t worry about what happened to other people. I hope she\u2019s OK and in the final for an exciting race.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was clearly relieved with her time as she looked ahead to the race everyone is talking about. \u201cAnother 1:57 so I\u2019m happy,\u201d she said. \u201cThe excitement makes me excited. I can\u2019t wait to step out there. I love a good challenge, I think it brings out the best in me. So yeah, hopefully it will be a really good race, a clean race, no one falling over tomorrow. No wind please. I\u2019m going to talk to the Etsy witch, make sure there\u2019s no wind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Broeders-Bol should certainly not be discounted, given how comfortable she looked throughout as she finished just behind Hodgkinson.<\/p>\n
Neither Hodgkinson and Werro will want the final to be slow given that Broeders-Bol\u2019s personal best for 400m is 49.17 sec \u2013 an indoor world record. That is significantly quicker than Werro\u2019s personal best, 50.80, and Hodgkinson\u2019s 51.14.<\/p>\n
The Dutch athlete isn\u2019t shying away from talking up her chances either: \u201cOne of the reasons I went to the 800 is because I love to race, and tomorrow\u2019s final is the ultimate race.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked whether it suits her that people are talking about Hodgkinson and Werro, rather than her, the four-time Olympic and world gold medallist started to smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it\u2019s different and quite nice,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve always said being the favourite is a privilege because you know you\u2019re very strong on paper. But I feel I\u2019ve never slept so well, and have never been this relaxed. So I think it brings its advantages as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keely Hodgkinson\u2019s biggest rival for European 800m gold has been dramatically put through into Friday\u2019s final after being tripped and sent sprawling during Thursday\u2019s first semi-final. It means that the hugely anticipated showdown is still on between Hodgkinson, the Olympic gold medallist; Audrey Werro, the 22-year-old Swiss superstar who ran the third fastest time in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":257584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6802],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-257583","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-athetics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}