The key change helping Georgia Hunter Bell step out of Keely Hodgkinson's shadow

Olympic 1500m bronze medalist Georgia Hunter Bell is gearing up for her first Diamond League appearance of the 2025 season in Stockholm on Sunday night.
Outside of the distance where she dazzled the Parisian crowds and broke Laura Muir 's British record in the process, Hunter Bell will instead line up for an 800m.
The 31-year-old will attack the shorter distance, which has become synonymous with her training partner, and Olympic champion, Keely Hodgkinson.
Hunter Bell is joined by compatriot Jemma Reekie to take on 800m world champion and the No 1-ranked athlete Mary Moraa.
Hunter Bell's talent in the 1,500m is already well known, but she has been making her mark across the shorter distance over the past year, too.
With a PB under her belt from last summer and Hodgkinson sidelined with another injury setback, this could be the season for Hunter Bell to rewrite expectations and step out of Hodgkinson's shadow.
Her unconventional journey is one of resilience. Hunter Bell was a high-achieving runner at youth level, but a stagnant period due to injury saw the Briton's passion for the sport dwindle.
She took a five-year hiatus after college, pursuing a corporate career in cybersecurity, only to rekindle her love for running during the Covid pandemic.
Now a full-time professional track star, she has built a schedule consisting of cross-training, altitude camps and full-time track focus, benefiting from the same infrastructure that has helped Hodgkinson conquer the sport.
Team GB's golden girl has already set the bar high, but Hunter Bell seems to thrive on a challenge.
The Paris-born runner set an 800m PB of 1:56.28 at the London Diamond League last year, finishing behind just Hodgkinson and Reekie for an all-British podium.
This season will be the optimal chance for Hunter Bell to leverage the same mindset that propelled Hodgkinson from a silver medal in Tokyo to the golden crown four years later.
Full-time training has allowed her to finally commit to lifting her power on the track. Continuity and consistency over this season will be vital for her to build on last year's explosive breakthrough.
After opening up on dealing with body shaming and online abuse following her Olympic fairytale, Hunter Bell has grown mentally stronger and ready to take the next step as a serial medal winner or gold medalist in a global championship.
'I have had to get quite a thick skin quite quickly, ever since last summer,' she said.
'There is a really dark side of social media where people write things about you, your body, how you look, what they think of you, your performance.'
Developing a champion's mindset and coming off social media is key as she plans to distance herself from the 'underdog' title.
She told PA news agency: 'Everyone else has their expectations and that's great, but I'm more, I don't want to just have one great year and fall off.'
She finished third overall on her Grand Slam Track debut two weeks ago and is now considered a top contender for major events.
She has also teased a potential event double at the upcoming World Athletics Championships in Tokyo this September.
So a strong performance this summer, in both events, could place her firmly in contention to upgrade her Olympic medal at LA2028 and perhaps even challenge Hodgkinson in her preferred event.
But to get there, she needs clean execution, tactical maturity, and the mental frame of a winner. If she can put all three together in Stockholm with a maiden Diamond League victory over for grabs, then the M11 Track Club, led by Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows, could have another superstar on their hands.

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Daily Mail​

33 minutes ago

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Jasprit Bumrah turns the series into two – when he's bowling and when he's not

You could see the weather coming at Headingley, there were billows of grey rain clouds out to the south, creeping slowly up towards the back of the Football Stand. And you knew something wicked was on its way in England's innings, too. The rain arrived right around the time it was supposed to begin, when Jasprit Bumrah was there waiting for them at the far end of his run, tossing the ball from one hand to the other, wearing a forbidding grin. England's openers, Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley, were so slow walking out to join him in the middle that it felt as if they were hanging on word of a last-minute pardon. They got one, or a reprieve at least, when the umpires called for the ground staff to bring on the covers. Crawley and Duckett had made it a few yards past the boundary and they retreated so quickly that they had already disappeared by the time Bumrah turned on his heels to look for them. India made a point of lingering in the middle and even sent their squad players out to kick a football around during the rain break just to make the point that the conditions were not so bad as all that. Unless you had to bat in them. It is thankless job bowling when the sun is out on a pitch like this, but at least you do not have to open the innings against the best quick in the game under floodlights in the spitting rain. Crawley, wide-eyed and pale-faced, rose to the occasion like a game young subaltern following the major's order to lead the men out of the trench. He lasted all of six balls. He was utterly beaten by the first one Bumrah aimed in at him, which straightened after it hit the pitch and ricocheted away off the edge of his bat. Bumrah beat Ollie Pope with a similar delivery, only this time the edge fell in between the slips and raced to the boundary. He ought to have got Duckett, too. He had him dropped twice, once at slip, once at gully, and then beat him all ends up with a wicked yorker that hit him just outside the line of leg stump. That was all in the space of nine balls. Duckett was so very keen to get himself away from Bumrah's end that he nearly ran himself out trying for a leg bye when a delivery from Mohammed Siraj bounced off Pope's pads through to Rishabh Pant. Then, the worst of it passed. Just like the weather. Bumrah made way after five overs and Pope and Duckett drank up India's change bowling like men who had just come to the first pub on the far side of the desert. Then Bumrah was back on. In his second spell he blew apart Duckett's stumps with a ball that nipped and slipped off the inside edge of a wildly ill-advised drive and had Pope dropped at second slip. He shouted in frustration after that catch went down. His back is giving in and he only has so many deliveries left in him. India are not so blessed with bowling they can waste so many of them. The fielders finally held on to one in his third spell, when he had Joe Root caught at slip. Then in the final over he bounced out Harry Brook with what turned out to be a no ball. By stumps, he had taken three for 48, and it could easily have been double the first number. His teammates managed none for 149 between them. Sign up to The Spin Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week's action after newsletter promotion It already feels as if there are going to be two series going on this summer, one when Bumrah's bowling and one when he's not. England's chances are a a lot better in one than they are the other. Fortunately for them, Bumrah's already said he expects to be able to play three of the five games. The series may turn on whether England can take good advantage of the other two. It also feels as if they will need one of their fast bowlers back if they are going to keep up with India, whether it is Jofra Archer, who should be fit for the second Test, or Mark Wood, who says he is targeting the fifth. Because right now, bless Chris Woakes, England's bowling all looks a little bit milquetoast. Ben Stokes dug his team out of trouble here by bowling 20 overs and taking four for 66, which is surely a deal more work than the medical team would like him to be doing at this point in his career. Otherwise, for a team who have 12 fast bowlers on contracts, plus four more who have been in one Test squad or another sometime in the past 12 months, their bowling has looked pretty thin this season. They are a good team, but they are missing the extra ingredient that might make them a great one. The attack needs a splash of Tabasco, to give it some of that heat Bumrah brings to India.