What a race! Kelly Holmes grabbed hold of a dynamic women’s 800 metres Olympic final with a piece of nerve, verve, strength and sheer bloody-minded determination, forcing her way past the defending champion, Maria Mutola (MOZ), barely three metres from the finish.
Such was the closeness of the blanket finish, in those next three metres, Mutola went from gold medal position to fourth, as Hasna Benhassi (MAR) and Jolanda Ceplak (SLO) went by her.
Holmes therefore won Britain’s first Olympic middle distance gold medal since 1984, recording a season’s best 1:56.38. Benhassi, from Morocco, was given a national record of 1:56.43 to go with the silver medal, but Ceplak was so close, that the Slovenian was given the same time.
In fourth, Mutola, who had been beaten only once in her previous 38 outings at the distance, also set a season’s best of 1:56.51. That was clearly no consolation: the Mozambican stormed from the track, avidly watched an action replay on a monitor, and clearly angered at the end result stormed through the mixed zone.
To think that a week ago, Holmes was not even going to run in this event. Such is the stuff that Olympic dreams are made.
Encouraged by her good form over two laps, Holmes opted to try both the 800 - in which her training partner, Mutola, was widely assumed to be unbeatable - as well as the 1,500. Tonight’s race unfolded perfectly for the 34-year-old from Kent.
With a clear race plan, Jearl Miles-Clark (USA) sped to the front, setting a seemingly suicidal pace that stretched the eight runners into single file by 200m, with Ceplak, Maria Cioncan, of Romania, Russia’s Tatyana Andrianova and Zulia Calatayud, from Cuba, all hanging on to the American’s coat tails.
“That first lap really knocked me out,” said Ceplak, who as Miles-Clark reached the bell in 56.37, was only fifth, shadowed by Mutola, and with Holmes, as she had done in the preliminaries, patient waiting, last of the eight, only just moving alongside Benhassi as they started the final circuit.
Holmes did her utmost to go with Mutola as the champion made her move down the back straight. Off the final bend, as Mutola ran in lane two to pass the fading front-runners and get on terms with Miles-Clark on the kerb, Holmes was running in lane three.
Into the straight, and the familiar tale of women’s 800-metre running of the past decade, with Mutola outlasting all-comers, seemed set to be repeated. But Holmes was having none of it.
As Benhassi and Ceplak both came wide, the Slovenian resurgent from seventh place at the 150 mark, they were quickly closing on the front two, the American drifted backwards.
But Holmes would not be beaten. The woman who placed fourth at the 1996 Games and third four years ago knew that this was her last, best chance to make Olympic history.
All four runners seemed to cross the line in a blink of an eye. The finish was so close that Holmes herself did not realise she had won until she saw a replay on the big screen beneath the Olympic flame. The expression on her face - a mixture of disbelief and unbridled joy - spoke volumes.
And now Holmes has another race to run in the morning.
SD
