Keely Hodgkinson pleased to safely navigate headache-inducing heats

The fact that Keely Hodgkinson still gets a headache from the heats should be comforting to Phoebe Gill as she navigates the same narrative arc.

800m favourite Hodgkinson increasingly casts a spell over her rivals and she was unchallenged in her Olympic heat, winning it in a fairly brisk 1:59.31.

The 22-year-old has never come unstuck at the first hurdle of a major championships but still finds the early stages tough to negotiate.

“I don’t really like heats, they’re not my favourites,” said Hodgkinson. “I feel like girls have stepped up this year because I looked at my heat and thought it was quite tough, actually, for a heat.

“The heats are worse than the final. In the final you just know you’re giving everything, but in the rounds you’ve got to contend with people giving their all, you’re trying to conserve energy and not make any mistakes.

“I’m definitely glad that’s done and the semis will be a bit more fun.”

Those words ought to be a salve to Gill, proof that experience is no match for nerves when it comes to progressing through the dreaded rounds.

Hodgkinson, Gill and Jemma Reekie all did so and the trio will race again in Sunday’s semi-finals.

They avoided a first tilt at the repechage round, a new and somewhat undesirable addition to the athletics programme, giving all but the top three finishers in each heat a second chance to advance to the semis.

Gill is the youngest woman ever to represent Team GB at 800 metres and the youngest in her sport since Moscow 1980.

The St Albans native's sole aim on the start line of her heat was not to start crying and she took a series of big, deep breaths in order not to do so.

“There has been a lot of preparation coming into this,” said Gill. “I’ve had to think in my head about