Zharnel Hughes is quickest man in world in 2023, whereas Keely Hodgkinson has run over a second faster than anybody else in girls’s 800m this yr; each athletes, plus Laura Muir, Katarina Johnson-Thompson and Dina Asher-Smith seeking to decide up medals at World Championships in Budapest
Final Up to date: 18/08/23 1:05pm
Zharnel Hughes set a brand new British file for the 100m when he ran 9.83 seconds in New York earlier this summer time
Forward of the World Athletics Championships in Budapest from Saturday, we take a look at a few of the chief medal contenders for Nice Britain…
Zharnel Hughes – Males’s 100m and 200m
Hughes is the quickest man on the planet this yr, clocking 9.83 seconds within the 100m at New York’s Icahn Stadium in June. That run not solely put him high of the 2023 timesheets but in addition earned him a British file.
Anguilla-born Hughes eclipsed Linford Christie’s time of 9.87 seconds, which the latter set when profitable gold on the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart, and 30 years on, there are excessive hopes of one other Brit topping the rostrum after the 100m.
The 28-year-old will even be a contender within the 200m, having damaged John Regis’ British file in that occasion when he ran 19.73 seconds on the London Diamond League competitors in July – the fourth-fastest time on the planet this yr.
Hughes is but to choose up a person medal at a World Championships, ending fifth within the 200m in Beijing in 2015 and lacking out on the 200m remaining in London in 2017 after which the 100m remaining in Eugene final yr.
However he’s a two-time gold medallist within the European Championships, profitable the 100m in Berlin in 2018 and the 200m in Munich 4 years later and appears properly positioned to push for medals subsequent week.
Dina Asher-Smith – Girls’s 100m and 200m
Like Hughes, Asher-Smith is doing the dash double as she appears to be like to win a maiden world title within the 100m and a second within the 200m, having scooped gold within the longer distance in Doha in 2019.
Asher-Smith’s victory 4 years in the past made her the primary British lady to win a serious international dash title and he or she advised the BBC just lately she is a extra full athlete now: “I am stronger, sooner, technically higher and extra assured.”
The 27-year-old has three particular person World Championships medals so far, with that gold in Qatar added to a silver within the 100m in the identical competitors – the Brit coming second to Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce – and bronze within the 200m in 2022.
Asher-Smith, sixth-fastest within the 100m this yr and twelfth quickest within the 200m, may face actual competitors from compatriot Daryll Neita for the best-performing Brit within the 200m – Neita has already crushed Asher-Smith over that self-discipline this time period.
Katarina Johnson-Thompson – Heptathlon
Johnson-Thompson’s main focus is on subsequent summer time’s Olympic Video games in Paris with the Liverpudlian but to win a medal on that final stage, however she is actually a contender to to assert a second world heptathlon title – after Doha in 2019 – significantly with two-time Olympic champion Nafi Thiam, of Belgium, lacking out with an Achilles downside.
Johnson-Thompson mentioned: “Each time I look again at movies, or see pictures of Doha, it simply takes me again to that place in time and the state of mind I used to be in. What has been accomplished earlier than may be accomplished once more.
“My objective is a medal and I feel I can rating what it takes to get on the podium however you by no means know whether or not the occasion goes to go off or if it may be fairly subdued. That is perhaps my final heptathlon earlier than Paris, I do not know if I’ll do one other one. It is like a full on costume rehearsal.”
Johnson-Thompson ruptured her Achilles in late 2020 and though she returned in time for the Tokyo Video games in 2021 she pulled out after injuring her calf within the 200m, whereas she then completed eighth ultimately yr’s World Championships in Oregon.
“I do not know what it may take to win [this year]. In order that’s why I really feel prefer it’s open. I may identify 5 individuals who may end between first, second and third.”
Laura Muir – Girls’s 1500m
Muir can have the added accountability of being Crew GB captain as she appears to be like to get on the highest step of the rostrum for the primary time in a world outside occasion.
The Scot took 1500m bronze in Oregon in 2022 after falling simply wanting the medals in earlier Worlds, whereas she claimed silver on the 2020 Olympics.
Muir has two golds within the European Championships, in Berlin in 2018 and 2022, and comes into this summer time’s occasion after incomes her sixth European Indoors gold in Istanbul in March.
The 30-year-old’s rivals in Budapest embody double Olympic and world champion Religion Kipyegon, who broke the 1500m world file when in June when she ran 3:49.11 in Florence.
Keely Hodgkinson – Girls’s 800m
On the age of simply 21, Hodgkinson has a really vibrant future, however she could be very a lot dominating within the right here and now after working greater than a second faster than anybody else within the girls’s 800m in 2023.
Nobody has been capable of get close to Hodgkinson’s 1:55.77, set in France in June, with the Brit wanting an excellent wager to go one higher than final yr in Oregon, when completed simply 0.08 seconds behind America’s Athing Mu.
British file holder Hodgkinson’s medal assortment additionally features a silver on the 2020 Olympics, which she received on the age of simply 19; two European Indoor Championships golds and outside European gold in Munich in 2022.
“I simply need to win as many medals as doable and develop into one in all Britain’s best athletes,” Hodgkinson advised the BBC just lately. She appears properly on her means…