It was mission accomplished for Jamaica’s middle-distance runner Adelle Tracey, who booked her spot in the women’s 1,500 metres semi-finals following an efficient execution in the heats on the opening day of the World Athletic Championships in Budapest, Hungary, on Saturday.

The Great Britain-born Tracey, running in the final of four heats, finished fifth in 4:03.67 to take one of the six automatic spots through to the semi-final scheduled for Sunday at 10:05am.

Tracey, 30, ran her usual patient race in mid-pack of the 13-athlete field, before gradually pushing closer to the leaders and remained comfortable from there.

Though she ran into traffic problems which forced her wide on the bell lap when the top six was tightly bunched, Tracey said it didn’t affect her much, as she was always focused on taking the safest route.

“It was just that everybody was trying to run to make sure they are safe so there was a little bit of hustling. I think sometimes you just have to play it safe, and I have been training well, so I knew that going wide was okay to do if it meant that I had a clear run and could really work into the line to make sure I got that spot,” Tracey explained.

“I am happy to go through easily and qualify to the next round, it was great, very happy to tick a box and get that qualifying spot,” she added.

Due back on the track in several hours for what will an event more competitive semi-final run, the cheerful athlete is intent on making the most of the short break.

“Now it’s just about recovery and getting as much rest as I need, get some treatment and ice bath until the next round,” Tracey noted.

You can catch live action of the 2023 World Athletic Championships by downloading the Sportsmax App.

Guyana’s Emanuel Archibald booked a spot in the men’s 100 metres heats, as he clocked the second fastest time in qualifying from the preliminaries on the Saturday’s opening day of action at the World Athletic Championships in Budapest, Hungary.

Archibald, 28, running in the first preliminary race, clocked 10.27 seconds in victory, to secure one of nine spots to the main event.

The heats are scheduled to be contested later today at 12:43pm Jamaica time.

You can catch live action of the 2023 World Athletic Championships by downloading the Sportsmax App.

Katarina Johnson-Thompson recovered from a nervous heptathlon opening on the first morning of the World Championships.

The 2019 world champion sits fourth after a delayed start at the National Athletics Centre in Budapest.

A storm postponed the action by an hour and forced Johnson-Thompson to wait but she struggled in the first event.

The 30-year-old ran 13.50 seconds in her 100m hurdles heat, well behind the American trio of Taliyah Brooks, Anna Hall and Chari Hawkins.

Before her Achilles rupture in 2020, Johnson-Thompson had run a personal best of 13.09 seconds – en route to winning the world title in 2019 – and clocked a season’s best of 13.34 seconds at the British Championships last month.

She entered the high jump at 1.77m, clearing at the first attempt, before eventually leaping 1.80m on her third jump to settle the nerves.

A clearance of 1.86m left her second in the high jump and fourth overall with 2104 points – 41 adrift of leader Hall – with the shot put and 200m to come in the evening session in Hungary.

Great Britain captain Laura Muir, who has endured a disrupted year after splitting from long-term coach Andy Young in March, was second in her 1500m heat.

She clocked four minutes 03.50 seconds behind the Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan.

Kenya’s defending champion Faith Kipyegon remains the overwhelming favourite and won her heat in four minutes 02.62 seconds.

Great Britain’s Katie Snowden and Melissa Courtney-Bryant also progressed to Sunday’s semi final.

Muir said: “Job done, I wanted to qualify with as little drama as possible.

“I was a little disappointed we weren’t in the rain. I would have been happy to crack on but I know there’s a lot of electrical equipment and technical equipment and the rain doesn’t suit everybody.

“It’s a fast track, I think it’ll be an exciting champs. As soon as I did a couple of strides it felt nice. There’s always a bit of scrapping and spiking but I felt comfortable.

“I saw Sifan go past and I was expecting that but I was scared she would go and everyone would come. I kept looking up and saw there was a gap.”

Jazmin Sawyers, the European indoor champion, finished 22nd in qualifying to miss out on the long jump final with a best of just 6.41m.

The 4x400m mixed relay quartet of Joe Brier, Laviai Nielsen, Rio Mitcham and Yemi Mary John reached Saturday night’s final in three minutes 11.19 seconds.

Nielsen said: “It was fast and loud, so I think that gave us an extra lift. We have all been itching to go so we are pleased with how we have performed as a team.”

Zharnel Hughes, the fastest man in the world this year, runs in the 100m heats in the evening with Reece Prescod and Eugene Amo-Dadzie.

Jamaica’s Rajindra Campbell is off to a dream start on debut, as he secured his spot in the men’s shot-put final on Saturday’s opening day of the World Athletic Championships in Budapest, Hungary.

Campbell, who earlier this year became the first Jamaican man to go beyond 22m when he launched the instrument to a national record of 22.22m, took his time to get going in Group A of qualifying, but eventually found his rhythm.

Though he missed the automatic qualifying mark of 21.40m, Campbell’s 20.83m on his third attempt, was good enough to make the final as it ranked him 10^th across the two groups.

Prior to achieving the mark which placed him sixth in his group, the 27-year-old Campbell, opened with an underwhelming 19.83m and registered no mark on his second attempt.

Campbell rued a lack of warm up and the wet conditions for his slow start.

"I didn't get through the complete warm up, the rain poured so I didn't get to warm up around the back because there was lightning and all that, so I came out here and tried to force it. the ring was very slippery, so that caused a lot of downhill performance today, but as we progressed the ring got dryer and I could actually feel the grip and that is how the last one came together," the vibrant thrower shared.

While his national record ranked him fourth coming into the championships, Campbell remains grounded where his medal prospects are concerned.

"Honestly, I don't want to start getting into that right now because later on (the final is to come). So, the job is not done yet, for now I am holding it together, I want to get some food in my system, take a nap and then I will be back," he said.

"It is a level playing field...that's the thing about competition, anything can happen on the day. So, I am confident in myself, I believe when it is necessary, I can pull something together just like I did with this last throw. It's something I have been doing consistently all season, so anything is possible," Campbell added.

Brazil’s Darlan Romani headlines the finalist with a big season’s best of 22.37m. The big American pair of two-time World Champion Joe Kovacs (21.59m) and Olympic Champion Ryan Crouser (21.48m) are also in the mix for the final scheduled for later this evening at 1:35pm Jamaica time.

You can catch live action of the 2023 World Athletic Championships by downloading the Sportsmax App.

Jamaica missed out on the cut for the final of the Mixed 4x400 metres relay, as they could only manage fifth in heat two of the event on Saturday's opening day of the ongoing World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary.

The Jamaican quartet of Demish Gaye, Natoya Goule-Toppin, Malik James-King and Stacey-Ann Williams, running in that order, struggled from the off and was at the back of the pack for the first two legs.

In fact, it was on the third leg that James King tried to force the initiative and gradually made progress, but faded in the latter stages, leaving Williams with much to do on anchor.

Despite facing an uphill task, Williams showed grit and determination to bring Jamaicans from eighth into fifth and ninth across the two heats in a season’s best 3:14.05.

They finished behind the Femke Bol led Dutch team, who won in 3:12.12, followed by France (3:12.25) and Czech Republic (3:12.52), with fourth-placed Germany taking one of the non-automatic qualifying spots.

United States with a World lead 3:10.41, Great Britain, with a national record 3:11.19, Belgium (3:11.81) and Ireland (3:13.90), are the other finalists.

You can catch live action of the 2023 World Athletic Championships by downloading the Sportsmax App.

Keely Hodgkinson believes athletics stars never get the credit they deserve.

The 21-year-old is in Budapest ahead of her assault on the 800 metres title at the World Championships.

Emma Raducanu’s US Open win in 2021 catapulted her to stardom while Hodgkinson is still a relative unknown outside of athletics in the UK.

That is despite her Olympic and world silver medals along with three European golds.

She said: “I do think us athletes work a lot harder than some other sports and we don’t get the recognition we deserve. I don’t know how but hopefully we will get there.

“I think because an athlete is individual, obviously you have your team around you which is great but you have a lot of individualisation time. I think it’s just hard.

“If it’s a team and you lose, the whole team is supporting you. If it’s you, everything is on you and you’re the one that controls what happens when you set off.

“That’s just a different kind of pressure. Training for these events, it’s tough. Footballers think they’re fit, they’re just not. Because if you brought them down to the track they wouldn’t keep up.

“Everyone works hard. Tennis players work really hard, everything is just different. But in all the different aspects you have in athletics, I don’t think people realise the behind the scenes of what goes into it.”

Hodgkinson has also limited the brands she works with – just Nike, Omega and Maurten – to ensure she remains focused on training, but was still called ‘athletics’ new It girl’ in an interview with Vogue this month.

“When you work with brands they also want something back,” she adds. “Days here, days in London, media days. If you’ve got six, seven, eight different brands your time is going to be taken up quite a bit – and my main priority is training.

“I just want to make sure they understand and they don’t want too much from me that it takes away or stresses me out, or anything like that. I’m protecting who I work with just to see what comes along.”

Her quest for 800m gold starts in the heats on Wednesday but world champion, the USA’s Athing Mu, has been keeping Hodgkinson guessing over whether she will compete in Hungary or focus on next year’s Paris Olympics.

Hodgkinson finished second behind Mu in Eugene last year and at the Tokyo Olympics, with their battle still poised to be one of the races of the Championships.

“When you’re missing a big name, when people come they want to watch that,” she said. “It would definitely be a shame if she’s missing. But we don’t know what’s going on on her side of the world and what her story is.

“We’ve not heard anything so I guess we just have to wait and see, but I try not to think about who’s going to turn up and who’s not.

“You kind of go in with the mentality that everyone’s going to be there and if they’re not, they’re not.

“That (gold) is a personal goal of mine anyway. So it would just be quite fulfilling if I did that.”

Meanwhile, skipper Laura Muir starts her 1500m campaign at the National Athletics Centre on Saturday, along with GB team-mates Katie Snowden and Melissa Courtney-Bryant, aiming to challenge Kenya’s world and Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon.

“Obviously, you always want to come away with a medal but it’s about the stuff you can control,” said Muir. “That’s what I talked about in the captaincy speech.

“The two key messages were: no limitations on yourself, because you don’t know what you’re capable of, you can go out there and run way faster than you thought, and then no expectations of others.

“You have no idea what other people are capable of either and what shape they’re in.”

Great Britain’s Zharnel Hughes believes he is making Usain Bolt proud as he looks to follow in the superstar’s footsteps.

The 28-year-old is eyeing the 100m title ahead of the heats on the opening day the World Championships on Saturday.

He arrives in Budapest as the fastest man in the world this year, having smashed Linford Christie’s 30-year British record in June when clocking 9.83 seconds in New York.

A month later in London he broke John Regis’ national 200m mark when running 19.73secs.

The 100m crown is up for grabs in Sunday’s final in Budapest, with no sprinter dominating since Bolt retired in 2017.

Hughes joined the Racers Track Club at 16 to train with Bolt, who was at the peak of his powers, and under coach Glen Mills and feels he soon grabbed the Jamaican star’s attention.

The 200m European champion said: “It first happened when I ran against Bolt in New York in 2015. I finished second to him, we both went to the finish line together and that’s when I opened his eyes. He noticed I was pretty quick and he was like, ‘Who is this young boy?’

“Since then, I think he has always held me at high regard, but injuries came along and stuff came by that’s out of my control. But I’m pretty sure now he sees the performances and he’s proud of me.

“First, Usain didn’t even know who I was. I was just a 16-year-old who came from Anguilla, skinny, looking like a tooth pick.

“But I came there and trained hard because I looked across every day to see what they were doing, how was it they pushed on? I was inspired by being in the presence of Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake, Warren Weir.

“I came there running 10.4 on grass and by the end of the season, I was running 10.20 and then the following year I got down to 10.12. So just being amongst those guys pushed me a lot.

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“To be in the presence of greatness was just one of those surreal moments. I just needed to pinch myself a second to realise, ‘Hey, you’re actually here’, but I think I got a little star struck.”

Eugene Amo-Dadzie and Reece Prescod also start their 100m campaigns at the National Athletics Centre.

Defending champion Fred Kerley, Noah Lyles and Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs will all make claims for the podium and Hughes recognises the nature of the race.

“It’s open but I’m bringing my A-game,” he said. “That’s all I know. I’m focusing on myself. I’m not really focused on whoever else is there. I’ll see them at the starting line and we will race towards the finish and see who gets there first.

“I don’t have a prediction, but I want to win. That’s the only thing on my mind, just going out, getting through the rounds and once I’m in the final let it all out.

“It’s a bit tense (in the call room), you can feel the tension and people are just sipping water, looking at you and you hear little grumbles now and then.

“They try to intimidate you, but my head is a bit hard to get into right now. So you can do whatever you have to do, but you’re not going to get into my head.

“I just go there. I sip my water. I look at who I need to look at, put my spikes on and I’m ready to race.”

Katarina Johnson-Thompson also competes on day one of the heptathlon, with Jazmin Sawyers going in long jump qualification, while Josh Kerr, Neil Gourley and Elliot Giles run in the 1500m heats.

Adam Gemili has revealed his battle with depression after turning to comfort eating during the worst year of his life.

The 29-year-old sprinter has shed 10kgs after moving to Italy following controversy and poor performances in 2022.

Gemili lost his lottery funding in December 2021 after staying with ex-coach Rana Reider, who was the subject of an investigation by the US Center for Safe Sport following multiple complaints of sexual misconduct, allegations which he denied.

Reider was given one-year probation earlier this year after he “acknowledged a consensual romantic relationship with an adult athlete, which presented a power imbalance”, according to his lawyer.

Gemili remained in America with Reider until after last year’s World Championships – where he failed to reach the 200m semi-final and only ran the heats as Great Britain won bronze in the 4x100m relay.

At the time Gemili hit out at bad press surrounding Reider for his performance – before apologising and taking the blame.

He also failed to make the 200m final at the Commonwealth Games during a year which left him rock bottom.

“I was alone in Florida, I was eating, I wasn’t doing anything and I found escape in food,” he told the PA news agency, ahead of the start of the World Championships in Budapest on Saturday. “It was the worst year of my life.

“I was severely depressed and food was a big escape. It’s been about getting happy again, getting mentally in a better place and becoming professional again. I started the year at 87 kilos, I’m now 77.

“I’m not like the other sprinters. I look at food and I put on weight. I’m not massively ripped, I don’t have a huge six pack. I’ve never needed that to run fast but I don’t need to be carrying an extra 10 kilos.

“I wasn’t professional last year and it’s made a massive difference. Being happy changes everything, your hormones, you start sleeping better.

“If you don’t sleep well you wake up in the middle of the night, you’re hungry, you go and eat and it’s just a bad cycle.

“It happens to a lot of people and a lot of athletes, especially when they’re not successful and then they find escape through food. I didn’t have people around me to say ‘stop that’.

“It was the worst time of my life and you don’t realise the negative effects it can have mentally.

“I was waking up to negative news, three missed calls from my mum and friends are texting saying ‘have you seen this article that’s come out? Your name and your picture is here’.

“Life in Italy is completely different, you’re waking up every day in the sunshine.

“Jeremiah (Azu) and I have two little electric scooters, we ride those to the track every day, it’s five minutes, train, get your treatment, go home and chill. It’s just good vibes.

“I feel incredibly happy. I’m enjoying every day and training whereas, last year, I was probably training once a week and barely getting through that.

“I was in a terrible place and to go from that to where I am now training with the athletes that I’m training with is great.”

Gemili, now on relay funding, is working with coach Marco Airale in Padua, 40 kilometres outside Venice, in a group which includes Darryl Neita, Reece Prescod and Azu.

He labels Italian Airale a “genius” and “super understanding”, having helped him earn his place in Great Britain’s 4x100m relay squad in Hungary.

While there is no individual slot for Gemili, who came an agonising fourth in the 200m at the Rio Olympics and the 2019 World Championships, he knows what he could still achieve.

Yet the 2014 European 200m champion is starting to think about life after the track and is hopeful of joining the World Athletics Athletes’ Commission, which is being voted for during the Championships in Budapest.

“You want to be an individual athlete but my mindset doesn’t change. I’m still locked in,” he says.

“I’ve been in this position before, at London 2017, and we ended up winning relay gold. Nothing changes for me. I’ve done it before and became world champion.

“Where I am in my career, I’m not that 19, 20-year-old anymore. I’m 30 in October and other things start to take priority in your life.

“I’m going for the World Athletes’ Commission, which is something I’ve always been super passionate about.

“I want to start making meaningful changes. I’m there to actually make a difference.

“I was lucky enough to be there at London 2012 and you would have expected our sport to have come on leaps and bounds and it did at the start but then has regressed back. Anyone who says it hasn’t is kidding themselves.

“We need more participation, we need more sponsorship in the sport, we need to attract more fans to our sport and make it accessible for everyone.”

For now Gemili is determined to enjoy Hungary, after admitting in February he nearly quit athletics and returned to football, having been in Chelsea’s academy as a kid.

“If I reflect on the place I was last year, I did want to give up; I basically stopped and I had options,” he said.

“I wasn’t enjoying it. It’s been a lot of hard work from a lot of people, not just myself but friends, family, training partners, coaches and support staff have helped me get my confidence back.

“I’m grateful to see where I’ve come from and if I can do it, anyone can. I was someone who never thought I would ever be in that position.

“Everyone has their own battles and demons they’re fighting and there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. Just being here at this Championships, I couldn’t have imagine that 12 months ago.”

Katarina Johnson-Thompson is ready to return to her best and believes the world heptathlon title is up for grabs.

The 2019 champion is eyeing the podium at the World Championships after last year’s winner Nafi Thiam pulled out.

Belgium’s Thiam, the double Olympic champion, is sidelined with an Achilles issue as she targets the treble at next year’s Games in Paris.

The USA’s Anna Hall, third in Eugene last year, is favourite for the crown in Hungary but Johnson-Thompson feels the competition is wide open.

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“Before Thiam dropped out, I felt like it was very much like a head-to-head between Thiam and Anna Hall and now I don’t know what it’s going to take to win a medal,” she said, ahead of the start of the heptathlon in Budapest on Saturday.

“I don’t know what it’s going to take to win. So that’s why I feel like it’s open. I could name five people who could finish between first, second and third.

“Sometimes the heptathlon can be a two-person race and then everyone else is fighting for the bronze, I feel like this year is quite open and I don’t know where it’s going to go.

“You never know. I’ve always been worried that 2019 was my peak, because then Covid happened and I had my Achilles rupture and the momentum I was building towards my peak got short changed and cut off.

“I feel like anybody who’s won a major championship has the ability to say ‘I’ve done it before therefore, it can be done again’. I feel like that, even though I can’t remember it.

“Whenever I look back at videos, or see images of Doha, it just takes me back to that place in time and the frame of mind I was in.

“So it’s always a positive thing to look back. What has been done before can be done again. That’s the type of frame of mind I get myself into when I see those images.

“I just like to prove myself right. I feel like if I let other people’s opinions in, I wouldn’t be sitting here saying that I’m in good shape and excited about the outcome, because I would have instead believed that I might as well give up or my body isn’t right for it.

“My goal is a medal and I think I can score what it takes to get on the rostrum but you never know whether the event is going to go off or if it’s going to be quite subdued.

“I’m trying to predict the future but I can’t. I feel like that’s why I’m just chilled because you’re just never going to know.”

Johnson-Thompson beat Thiam to win world gold in Doha four years ago before her Achilles rupture in late 2020.

She recovered to make the Tokyo Olympics only to suffer a calf injury in the 200m and withdraw. She finished eighth at last year’s World Championships – having split with coach Petros Kyprianou weeks before after only five months in Florida.

A successful defence of her Commonwealth Games title in Birmingham put her back on the podium and she is now content in Hungary.

“This one feels different in the way that I feel like I’m the calmest I’ve ever been going into it,” said the 30-year-old, now based in the UK under Aston Moore.

“In Doha it was exciting and I had a big battle but with this one I feel completely calm and full of experience.

“I’ve done it so many times now and it never gets any easier but you can approach it in a different manner. I feel like this one, I’m just going to put all my experience into it and see where it gets me.

“It’s always a stepping stone to next year, because ultimately the main goal of my career is to get an Olympic medal.

“This is maybe my last heptathlon before Paris – I don’t know if I’m going to do another one. So it’s like a full on dress rehearsal.”

Holly Bradshaw has revealed she has beaten crippling anxiety to lay her pole-vault ghosts to rest.

The 31-year-old is ready for the World Championships in Budapest after returning from a nightmare injury streak.

Bradshaw suffered a freak accident in Eugene last year when her pole broke in the final jump of her warm-up.

It left her with back, arm and hamstring injuries and she then snapped her hamstring at the Commonwealth Games a few weeks later in a rush to compete in Birmingham.

A comeback this year, shaking off an Achilles issue, has seen her make the plane for Budapest on her world ranking position but it has not been without its own fears.

She said: “I was crippled with anxiety leading into it and I just had to remind myself, this is what I love. Going through the warm-ups out in Lausanne (Diamond League in July) I was nervous. I was pretty much shaking.

“I felt sick. I hadn’t competed in over a year and actually jumped well in over two years in a competition environment.

“There’s also the anxiety of clearing the bar. Having my big fall in Oregon has created some anxiety around pole vaulting, especially in windy conditions. So there’s this something that sits in the bottom of your stomach or in your mind that says, ‘I don’t want to do this. This is scary.’

“The first couple of competitions was really trying to overcome that and overcome that fear but once that hard bar went up and I cleared the opening one I had the biggest smile on my face.

“I didn’t pick up a pole after I snapped my hammy until January. That’s five and a half months I couldn’t run down the runway.

“I would have loved to have just got back up and planted the pole, that would have done my psychology a world of good, but because I couldn’t it was tricky.

“I’m quite robust, I don’t know whether it’s like the northern streak in me. I’m renowned on the circuit for, ‘she’ll pop off the pole, fall and then she’ll just get straight back up and clear the bar’.

“I just don’t let those negative things seep into my brain. I’m just kind of crazy. I just go for it. The biggest challenge for me was trying not to let those terrifying, negative, thoughts come in.”

After finishing second at the British Championships to Molly Caudery last month, Bradshaw now feels it is important to talk about any issues so others can understand what athletes deal with.

“Athletes being more open with what they’re going through, with what they’re struggling with, it just educates people,” she said.

“How are you guys (the media) meant to know what’s going on if we don’t tell you? So we tell you what’s going on and then there’s more knowledge around that situation. In the past athletes get frustrated but actually it’s on them to be open as well.

“I remember when I was a young athlete, I wanted to keep my injuries secret. I didn’t want anyone to think I’m weak.

“Now it’s like, ‘this is what’s going on in my life and this is what I’m navigating’.

“I’m just doing the best that I can and I’m kind of on this journey to try and achieve something. I’m going to tell you all about it and not be embarrassed or shameful of it.”

In a bid to get back to her best, double Olympic sprint champion Elaine Thompson-Herah is now taking coaching orders from former MVP coach Shanikie Osbourne.

According to a Radio Jamaica report, Thompson-Herah, who has been a shadow of her usual competitive self in recent times, engaged the temporary arrangement with Osbourne, after the National Senior Championships in July, where she missed an individual lane for the upcoming World Athletic Championships.

However, she finished well enough to make the team to Budapest, Hungary, as part of the relay pool.

While the move may come as a surprise to many, Osbourne, who previously coached Papine High, explained that it is basically a continuation of what transpired during Thompson-Herah’s time at MVP.

“I have been working with her since we have been at MVP, so it’s similar stuff; so, I’m just working with her for now. Not sure if it is going to be permanent, but just working with her for now,” said Osbourne during the Radio Jamaica interview.

The coach pointed out that where the relationship goes after the World Championships is left solely up to Thompson-Herah, 31, who previously took orders from world renowned coach Stephen Francis before switching coaching duties to her husband Derron Herah in 2021.

“It’s according to her, probably she’s trying to see how things work out to the end of the season and then she’ll make a decision, but it’s up to her,” Osbourne shared.

By all indications, the women’s 400m hurdles at the upcoming World Athletic Championships in Budapest, Hungary, would appear to offer one key question – how much faster can Femke Bol go?

Following Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s decision not to defend the world title she won in her home setting of Oregon last year, when she left her Dutch rival halfway down the finishing straight as she improved her world record to a staggering 50.68s, Bol’s pathway has now been cleared.

The Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist prepared for the 400m hurdles in spectacular fashion during the indoor season, as she worked on her speed over 400m flat. To such effect that on February 19, she broke the longest standing athletics track record in the book when she clocked 49.26s to win the Dutch indoor title, eclipsing the mark of 49.59s set in 1982.

The high point of her season so far occurred in front of a sell-out 50,000 crowd at the London Stadium on July 23, as she ran a European and Diamond League record of 51.45s.

"I've been wanting to run a 51 ever since Tokyo. I had a feeling I could do it but I still can't believe I've done it," said the 23-year-old.

Her time was one-hundredth of a second faster than McLaughlin-Levrone ran to win the Tokyo Olympic title in a race where Bol finished third behind the defending champion Dalilah Muhammad.

It was only four-hundredths of a second slower than the world record McLaughlin-Levrone set at last year’s US trials in Oregon. But it was the best part of a second slower than the current world mark of 50.68s run by her rival at last year’s World Athletics Championships.

Such is the measure of the challenge for this amiable Dutch athlete.

While McLaughlin-Levrone will be absent from the event – and indeed the championships because of a late knee issue – her predecessor as world and Olympic champion, Muhammad, will be present, albeit that the 33-year-old’s season’s best of 53.53s only has her at fifth place in this season’s world list.

Muhammad’s US colleague Shamier Little, whose 2021 personal best of 52.39s has her at fifth place in the all-time list, will also be a medal contender, as will the Jamaican trio of Andrenette Knight, who has clocked 53.26s this season; Janieve Russell, with a 2023 best of 53.65s; and Rushell Clayton, who has clocked 53.79s.

Look out too for Britain’s Jessie Knight, who has run a personal best of 54.09s this season, and Viktoriya Tkachuk of Ukraine, who has a best of 53.76s.

World Athletics president Lord Sebastian Coe believes “real deal” Keely Hodgkinson and sprint star Zharnel Hughes are Great Britain’s best bets for World Championship glory.

Hodgkinson missed out on the world 800 metres title by just 0.08 seconds to American Athing Mu last year and also finished second behind the same athlete at the Toyko Olympics in 2021.

The 21-year-old has been in excellent form this season, setting a world best indoors over 600m in January and defending her European indoor title before beginning her outdoor season by lowering her British record in Paris.

Hughes has enjoyed arguably even better preparation for Budapest, the Anguilla-born star breaking the 30-year-old British records of Linford Christie and John Regis over 100 and 200m respectively in the space of a month.

His 100m time of 9.83 seconds, recorded in New York in June, remains the fastest in the world this year.

Asked if Hughes’s performances had earned the respect of the top sprinting nations and could lead to gold in Budapest, Coe said: “Yes and yes.

“I can give you the feedback from the cradle of sprinting and the NACAC congress in Costa Rica last month.

“People whose judgement I really value, both in Jamaican sprinting and US sprinting, think he can win in Budapest simply because it may not be that fast a race anyway. Their judgement is that he is absolutely a contender.

“The more people coming on the scene and fighting their way into the upper echelons of the sport is terrific and for British sprinting it’s not just a good thing, it’s an important thing.

“And those were good records; John Regis’s 200m record was one for the ages when he set it.”

Hodgkinson has tasted just one defeat over 800m so far in 2023, finishing second behind Kenya’s Mary Moraa, the Commonwealth champion, in Lausanne.

“I think she’s the real deal, I’ve thought that for some time,” added Coe, who also feels Dina Asher-Smith and Katarina Johnson-Thompson will challenge for medals in Budapest.

“At the age of 19 winning a silver in a world championships, similar type of performance at an Olympic Games, she’s outstanding. She’s coached well, she’s grounded and she’s talented.

“She is at this moment in great shape and this is where we’re beginning to see some strength in depth with Jemma Reekie running 1:57 in London. We’ve got depth now and genuine quality and this is encouraging.”

Coe reiterated that no Russian or Belarusian athletes would be competing in Budapest following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a stance that World Athletics is set to maintain for next year’s Olympic Games.

“We’ve taken the view they won’t be in Paris,” Coe said. “We made the decision that we felt was in the best interests of the sport.

“Decisions we’ve made in the past have been tough ones, whether it’s around preserving the female category, transfers of allegiance, the initial suspension of Russia back in 2015 – we’ve done it because it’s been the right thing to do.

“If it has given other sports permission or comfort to feel that they can do the same then that’s a good thing but it’s entirely up to them – we didn’t do it for that reason.

“The nature of these decisions is that the world does change. We are also creating working groups to monitor the situation so we aren’t closing the door forever.

“We’re not the ‘computer says no’ federation and we’ve always, if we could, found the navigable route through.”

Olympic champion and world record-holder Karsten Warholm laid down a huge marker of his ambition to regain the 400m hurdles title at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest when he set a Diamond League record of 46.51 in Monaco on July 21.

The 27-year-old Norwegian said before his race that his experience at last year’s World Championships in Oregon, where he finished seventh after recovering from a hamstring injury incurred in his opening meeting of the season, has been a strong motivating factor this year.

"It was really nice to do this again – that 0.01 off the Diamond League record and also the track record," Warholm said after a performance that also bettered his own top world mark for 2023.

"This is a nice timing as the World Championships is just around the corner. Since I was injured last year, I enjoyed the racing more."

In his wake was Brazilian Alison dos Santos, who took over the world title he had won in 2017 and 2019, who clocked a season’s best of 47.66.

Dos Santos, who finished third in the Tokyo Olympic final, has had to recover from a serious injury early this year in the form of a torn meniscus in his right knee which required surgery.

At the time it appeared his season was over before it had started, but he returned to top class action at the Silesia Diamond League meeting on 16 July, where he finished third in the 400m in 44.73. And in his first race over the hurdles in Monaco the 23-year-old from Sao Paulo did enough to stir his World Championships ambitions.

"That was the perfect opportunity for me to come back to run,” he said. "Now I will get ready for Budapest, to be able to win my world title again."

But Warholm and Dos Santos are not the only ones with world gold in their sights, as Rai Benjamin is equally determined to make a breakthrough in Budapest.

The 26-year-old US athlete took silver behind Warholm at the Doha 2019 World Championships and bettered the Norwegian’s world record of 46.70 in the Tokyo Olympic final where he clocked 46.17 and took another silver as Warholm reached deeper to set the current world record of 45.94.

Last year, with Warholm still a way off full fitness following a hamstring strain after clearing the first hurdle of his first race of 2022 at the Rabat Diamond League meeting, Benjamin must have thought his chance had come to make a golden impression on his home track in Eugene, Oregon – but Dos Santos won with a South American record of 46.29, with the home runner clocking 46.89.

How close can the Brazilian get to his best form in the time available? At the moment his is only fifth fastest in this season’s list, with two other runners above him – Kyron McMaster of the British Virgin Islands, the double Commonwealth champion and fourth-place finisher in Tokyo, who has clocked 47.26, and CJ Allen of the United States, who has set a personal best of 47.58.

Others likely to make their mark include France’s Ludvy Vaillant, who has run a personal best of 47.85 this season, as has Jamaica’s Roshawn Clarke, and 31-year-old Rasmus Magi of Estonia, European silver medallist in 2014, who has run 48.04 this season.

Italy’s 24-year-old 2018 world U20 champion Alessandro Sibilio, a Tokyo Olympic Games finalist, is also one to look out for.

Sprinter Matthew Hudson-Smith says he endures daily injury pain but insists he will be ready for next month’s World Championships after leaving last weekend’s Diamond League meet in a wheelchair.

Great Britain’s squad for Budapest is due to be announced on Friday afternoon, with 400m runner Hudson-Smith seeking to better the bronze he won in Eugene last year.

The 28-year-old clocked a season’s best 44.72 seconds in finishing fourth in London on Sunday before raising concerns about his fitness by requiring mobility assistance at the end of the race.

He opted against revealing the specific location of an ongoing issue he termed as a “niggle” as he allayed fears about him being absent from the track in Hungary.

“I’m not at 100 per cent but I’ll be ready for the Worlds,” said Hudson-Smith.

“Listen, money is on the line, I’ve trained all year. I hope people understand how much work I have put into this year.

“I didn’t do all this work just to fall at the last hurdle. Whether I am good or bad, I’m gonna put my all in.

“At championships I always do my best and as you see when I get into finals I make medals. We’re loading for Worlds so we’ll be ready for when it matters.”

South Africa’s Wayde Van Niekerk clinched 400m glory at London Stadium in 44.36 secs.

American duo Bryce Deadmon and Vernon Norwood also crossed ahead of European champion Hudson-Smith.

“I couldn’t walk (after the race in London),” he said. “It was burning at the top bend so I had to push through.

“It aggravates on the bends and my event is two bends so it’s a matter of where it’s going to hurt.

“I’ve had an ongoing niggle since April. It’s been hard to manage. Sometimes it’s up, sometimes it’s down.”

Asked if he endures pain when lying in bed, he replied: “It’s every day, man, literally it’s bad. Christine (Ohuruogu, former 400m sprinter) has had similar issues as well and I’ve talked to her about it.

“I’ve got the best people in the world looking after me. It is just managing it and changing training so I’m fit and now we can put some speed into it and lean into it.”