One of Great Britain’s three bronze medals came from Georgia Bell’s incredible 1500m effort on the last night of track and field in Paris 2024, which was celebrated with revelry.
Bell gave up on her Olympic ambition when she stopped competing in athletics in 2017, but on her Games debut, the 30-year-old shattered the British record with a run of three minutes 52.61 seconds, helping Faith Kipyegon win the gold for the third time in a row.
The men’s and women’s 4x400m quartets both performed well after that thrill, guaranteeing that Great Britain placed first in every relay competition.
With the women’s marathon scheduled for Sunday, Team GB will have won ten medals overall in the Stade de France, which is twice as much as they did in the athletics competition three years prior in Tokyo.
The men’s 4×400-meter relay team, which finished third behind the United States and Botswana, included Alex Haydock-Wilson, Matthew Hudson-Smith, Lewis Davey, and Charlie Dobson. They also set a European mark with their time of 2:55.83.
Ten minutes later, Victoria Ohuruogu, Laviai Nielsen, Nicole Yeargin, and Amber Anning equaled that third-place performance with a British women’s national record of 3:19.72. The USA won gold once more, this time defeating a Dutch team led by Femke Bol, who finished quickly.
After winning the mixed 4x400m bronze last week, Great Britain secured its sixth relay podium finish on Friday with the wins in the women’s 4x100m silver and men’s 4x100m bronze events.
Additionally, it helped the team win its most medals in athletics in an Olympics in forty years, since 16 were won by competitors from Great Britain in Los Angeles in 1984.
Bell wins an enchanted Olympic medal
Since rediscovering her love of running three years ago, Bell has come a long way.
She was once a tremendously gifted junior athlete who won the English Schools 800m in 2008, but she was unable to live up to the potential in terms of both her mental and physical health.
Her love of running was only rekindled during the pandemic, and she decided to reconnect with her former coach Trevor Painter after observing steady progress. Trevor Painter, along with his wife Jenny Meadows, a world medallist, has coached Keely Hodgkinson to become the Olympic 800m champion.
Read Also: Ledecky Makes Waves: Secures 800 Freestyle Gold at Paris Olympics
Despite working a full-time job in cyber security, she has made amazing progress since then.
Bell made her Olympic debut by defeating Laura Muir in the British final after winning European silver in June. Bell had taken a summer break from competition to follow a dream that didn’t seem possible even at the beginning of the year.
In the last few meters, Bell used all of her strength to pass Ethiopia’s Diribe Welteji, cutting nearly four seconds off her personal record in the process.
Kenya’s Kipyegon, the current three-time defending Olympic 1500-meter champion, won in a time that set a record of 3:51.29, while Jessica Hull of Australia earned second place in 3:52.56.
