The China Mail - Hodgkinson settles nerves in Tokyo after injury doubts

The 23-year-old Briton was sidelined for months by lingering hamstring problems after winning gold in Paris last summer and only returned to the track in August.

She showed no signs of rust after winning her heat in the Japanese capital in a time of 1min 59.79sec but she said that as recently as July she had not been sure if she would be able to compete.

"It was a matter of literally day by day, week by week on what the plan was for a period of time -- there was no plan," said Hodgkinson, who won world championships silver in both 2022 and 2023.

"We were just going with what my body was reacting to. Luckily we made it here and we did enough and I'm in this great place."

Hodgkinson made a triumphant return to action last month, running a world-leading time of 1:54.74 at the Silesia Diamond League meet in Poland.

She followed that up with another meet record a week later in Lausanne, beating Switzerland's Audrey Werro to put herself firmly among the favourites for the world title.

Hodgkinson, who could well be Britain's best remaining hope of winning a gold at these championships, said getting herself ready to compete had been "challenging".

"I feel like it's come quite quickly," she said.

"One minute, it was just get on the start line and run a race, then it was do the next one and now it's like, OK, get into a world championship mindset when all year I've not been sure if I was going to be here.

"So it's been interesting."

Werro also made it through the heats along with Kenya's defending world champion Mary Moraa and Olympic silver medalist Tsige Duguma of Ethiopia.

Hodgkinson said she was "not really an athlete that needs loads of races" to be ready to compete.

"I've been losing my mind. I've been so bored just waiting for it to come around," she said.

"So I was really excited to get out there tonight and it's our turn to have some fun and get on the stage."

B.Carter--ThChM