Bell’s brilliant bronze and relay stars boost GB medals haul

Georgia Bell’s sensational 1500m performance delivered one of three bronze medals for Great Britain amid a party atmosphere on the final night of track and field at Paris 2024.

Bell had given up on her Olympic dream when she quit athletics in 2017, but the 30-year-old broke the British record with a time of three minutes 52.61 seconds on her Games debut, as Faith Kipyegon won a third successive title.

That excitement was followed by success for both the men’s and women’s 4x400m quartets, which ensured GB won a medal in every relay event.

It took Team GB’s total medal haul at the Stade de France to 10 – twice as many athletics medals as they achieved in Tokyo three years ago – with the women’s marathon to come on Sunday.

The men’s 4x400m quartet featuring Alex Haydock-Wilson, Matthew Hudson-Smith, Lewis Davey and Charlie Dobson set a European record of 2:55.83 as they earned bronze behind the United States and runners-up Botswana.

That third-place achievement was matched 10 minutes later by Victoria Ohuruogu, Laviai Nielsen, Nicole Yeargin and Amber Anning, who clocked a British women’s national record of 3:19.72 as the USA again took gold, this time ahead of a Netherlands team anchored by the fast-finishing Femke Bol.

It marked a fifth relay podium result for GB, who won women’s 4x100m silver and men’s 4x100m bronze on Friday, following mixed 4x400m bronze last week.

Bell has made remarkable progress since rediscovering her love of running three years ago.

Once a hugely talented junior athlete, winning the English Schools 800m in 2008, both mentally and physically she was unable to sustain that promise.

It was only during the pandemic that she rediscovered her enjoyment of running and, noticing continuous improvement, she chose to get back in contact with her former coach Trevor Painter – the man who, alongside wife and world medallist Jenny Meadows, has overseen Keely Hodgkinson’s rise to Olympic 800m champion.

The progress she had made since, despite holding down a full-time job in cyber security, has been remarkable.

After winning European silver in June, Bell beat Laura Muir to the British title to secure her Olympic debut, having taken a summer sabbatical from work to pursue a dream that seemed unlikely even at the start of the year.

And in Paris, in her first final at a global championship, she completed a fairytale journey to the Olympic podium.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever been this happy,” Bell told BBC Sport.

“I woke up really calm and in a good mood and I just thought ‘I’m not the fastest person in that race’ but I thought if I was brave and got stuck in, I could make something special happen.”

Bell dug deep to overhaul Ethiopia’s Diribe Welteji in the final metres, taking almost four seconds off her personal best in a stunning performance.

Kenya’s Kipyegon, now a three-time reigning Olympic 1500m champion, set an Olympic record 3:51.29 for victory as Australian Jessica Hull took silver in 3:52.56.

Tokyo silver medallist Muir missed out on the medals in fifth, despite running a personal best 3:53.37.

Half of Team GB’s track and field medals in Paris were delivered by the relay teams, their success here undoubtedly something to build on before next year’s World Championships.

It comes one year after they won four world relay medals in Budapest, only failing to make the podium in the men’s 4x100m.

After double medal delight on Friday, individual 400m silver medallist Matthew Hudson-Smith starred for the men by running an unmatched 43-second leg to put GB in medal contention, before Dobson brought the team home a comfortable third.

One day after breaking the British 400m record to finish fifth on her global championship debut, Amber Anning produced a gritty final leg to hold out for bronze ahead of Ireland after Bol stormed past for silver in the closing stages.

Overall, Great Britain won one gold, four silvers and five bronze medals in nine days of electrifying track and field competition at the Stade de France, three years after winning just two silvers and three bronze medals in Tokyo.

Keely Hodgkinson delivered the standout moment as the 22-year-old ended her wait for global gold in the women’s 800m.

Hudson-Smith was just four-hundredths of a second away from the gold-winning time in the men’s 400m final, while Josh Kerr and Katarina Johnson-Thompson also won silver medals.

Britain’s women’s 4x100m relay team also finished second, while there were bronze medals for the four other relay teams – and of course Bell in a strong finish to the Games.