By Nick Mulvenney
TOKYO (Reuters) -Anna Hall won the heptathlon 800 metres in two minutes 06.08 seconds at the world championships on Saturday to secure her first global gold medal and bring the world title back to the United States for the first time since 1993.
Bronze medallist in Eugene in 2022 and second in Budapest in 2023, Hall lost a large part of her 2024 season after knee surgery but finally reached the top step of a major podium with a dominant two-day performance.
The 24-year-old scored 6,888 points to give her country a first world champion heptathlete since Jackie Joyner-Kersee won her second title in Stuttgart.
“This gold means so much,” she said. “Jackie and I have talked about the worlds and I am so glad to finally get my gold.
“I struggled with injuries in 2024 and my body did not let me perform to my full potential in Paris (at the Olympics).”
Ireland’s Kate O’Connor finished second with a national record 6,714 points, while Britain’s defending champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson and American Taliyah Brooks shared bronze after finishing with an identical tally of 6,581.
Johnson-Thompson finished second behind Hall in the 800m in 2:07.38 while Brooks managed ninth after running a personal best 2:13.17, which proved enough to tie the Briton on points and keep her on the podium.
It was the third personal best of the day for Brooks after similar efforts in the long jump and javelin had put her into third place.
“To share bronze is a special situation for us and I couldn’t be more proud, even it’s a joint medal,” said Brooks.
“I think we both deserve it, we both worked really hard and had a lot of ups and downs, so it came down to the 800 metres as it always does. We both fought until the end.”
Hall, who became the fifth woman to join the elite 7,000 points club earlier this year, started day two with a lead of 248 points over O’Connor.
A modest 6.12m in the long jump cut her lead but a personal best of 48.13m in the javelin kept her 122 points ahead of her Irish rival heading into the final event, one of Hall’s strongest.
Hall settled in second place for the first lap of the 800m but hit the front on the second run down the back straight and stormed home to clinch the title.
Belgium’s triple Olympic and twice world champion Nafi Thiam, who had not been beaten in competition since 2019, withdrew on Saturday after an underwhelming long jump left her with almost no chance of a medal.
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing Ken Ferris)
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