Jazmin Sawyers disappointed with eighth in long jump

Sawyers produced the third-best wind-legal leap of her career with 6.80m but it was only enough for eighth in the long jump final, the same position she finished at Rio 2016.

The Walsall-based athlete, who has set a new personal best of 6.90m this season, insists she will come back stronger.

“I’m disappointed,” she said. “Top eight is good but at this point in my career, I’m not satisfied at all.

“If I’d have hit better positions in the air on my fourth jump, it could have been a different conversation. I rushed into my landing and should have been patient.

“I believe I can be on that podium, it just wasn’t good enough. I’ve got to go back and work harder, I believe there’s a champion in me, I just need to get her out.”

It was a dramatic Olympic final, in which Sawyers’s fellow Team GB athlete Abigail Irozuru finished 11th.

Germany’s Malaika Mihambo took the title with a 7m jump in the final round, unseating USA’s Brittney Reese from gold medal position.

“I think in a competition like that, where there were no crazy distances, it was an opportunity to get on the podium,” said Sawyers. “I couldn’t manage that today which I am disappointed by, but I still did well but it’s just not what I want.”

Later in the day, Keely Hodgkinson claimed a stunning 800 metres silver medal at the Olympics as the rising star smashed Kelly Holmes’ British record.

The 19-year-old clocked one minute 55.88 seconds to finish behind winner Athing Mu of the USA in Tokyo. She also set a new national record in the process, beating Holmes’ mark of 1.56.21 minutes that the double Olympic champion set in 1995.

Hodgkinson said: “It was so open and I wanted to put it all out there, I’m so happy.

“Kelly Holmes is a legend. I’ve looked up to her and spoken to her in the last couple of days, she’s a lovely person.

“I just have no words. It means so much, and thank you to everyone that has sent messages over the past couple of days.

“If the Olympics had been last year I wouldn’t have been here, but suddenly it’s given me a year to grow and compete with these girls.”

Jemma Reekie came an agonising fourth, despite setting a new personal best of 1.56.90 minutes, after being caught by the USA’s Raevyn Rogers. Alex Bell also claimed a personal best of 1.55.66 minutes to come seventh.

However, Adam Gemili suffered more Olympic misery when he walked his 200 metres heat.

The 27-year-old had his right thigh heavily strapped and pulled up immediately in the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo. He tore his hamstring in his last blocks session before final call and finished in one minute 58.58 seconds after his lonely trudge to the line.

“The last run, literally the last run before I came into the call room, the last blocks start and I felt it go,” he said. “It’s my hamstring. I had to try but I’m in so much pain right now – I said to my physio, just strap it up and let me at least try to push out but I can tell straight away.

“You don’t just cramp up when you sprint, it was a tear. I can’t believe this has happened.”

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