Tokyo Olympics Athletics: Athing Mu smashes national record to bag women’s 800m gold as Keely Hodgkinson clinches silver by a whisker

Tokyo Olympics Athletics: Athing Mu smashes national record to bag women’s 800m gold as Keely Hodgkinson clinches silver by a whisker

Athing Mu, Raevyn Rogers and Keely Hodgkinson

America’s Athing Mu won the women’s 800m gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics as she rewrote the national record. Mu clocked 1:55.21 to bag the pole position ahead of Keely Hodgkinson. The Great Britain sprinter clocked to 1:55.81 to take the silver medal by a whisker.

Raevyn Rogers clinched the bronze medal clocking a mere 7 milliseconds. Hodgkinson smashed the national record on her way to the silver medal at the Tokyo Games. She better the English record of 1:56.21 of Kelly Holmes by a second. Holmes’ record stood a staggering 26 years having been scripted at the IAAF Grand Prix on 9 September 1995.

Athing Mu smashes American women’s 800m record

Athing Mu
Athing

On her way to the gold medal, Athing Mu rewrote the American national record. She bettered Ajee’ Wilson’s 1:55.61 at Herculis which she clocked on 21 July 2017. Mu bettered the record by 40 milliseconds as she bagged the 24th gold medal for the United States at the Tokyo Olympics.

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Great Britain’s Jemma Reekie(1:56.90) and China’s Wang Chunyu(1:57.0) completed the top five in the final. It is a remarkable feat for the 19-year-old Mu to not only win her maiden Olympic medal on debut but going on to top the event. It was an incredible effort from the teenager to script history on Olympic debut.

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