KEELY'S GOLDEN

Hodgkinson blows the field away as she powers home for 800m win

- ANDY DUNN

ON a steamy night in northern Paris, there were tears, plenty of them but barely a bead of sweat.

Keely Hodgkinson did not just live up to her billing as a gold medal certainty, she did so with a generational performance.

That pre-race billing brought its own ton of pressure, everyone expecting Keely's coronation.

The weight of a nation's sporting hopes were, for just under two minutes, on Hodgkin-sons shoulders and she knew the rest of the field would have to conspire to stop her, rough her up, get her out of her rhythm.

But nothing can put this remarkable, super-confident athlete off her most regal of strides.

She went to the front with just over 500 metres of the 800 left to travel and dictated matters until crossing the line comfortably ahead of Ethiopia's Tsige Dogma and Kenya's Mary Moraa.

In fact, she dictated matters from the off.

As she pulled away in the home straight, Hodgkinson even had time to look up at the giant screen to see her epic finish in all its cinematic glory.