Zharnel Hughes is fastest man in world in 2023, while Keely Hodgkinson has run over a second quicker than anyone else in women's 800m this year; both athletes, plus Laura Muir, Katarina Johnson-Thompson and Dina Asher-Smith looking to pick up medals at World Championships in Budapest
Friday 18 August 2023 13:05, UK
Ahead of the World Athletics Championships in Budapest from Saturday, we look at some of the chief medal contenders for Great Britain…
Hughes is the fastest man in the world this year, clocking 9.83 seconds in the 100m at New York's Icahn Stadium in June. That run not only put him top of the 2023 timesheets but also earned him a British record.
Anguilla-born Hughes eclipsed Linford Christie's time of 9.87 seconds, which the latter set when winning gold at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart, and 30 years on, there are high hopes of another Brit topping the podium after the 100m.
The 28-year-old will also be a contender in the 200m, having broken John Regis' British record in that event when he ran 19.73 seconds at the London Diamond League competition in July - the fourth-fastest time in the world this year.
Hughes is yet to pick up an individual medal at a World Championships, finishing fifth in the 200m in Beijing in 2015 and missing out on the 200m final in London in 2017 and then the 100m final in Eugene last year.
But he is a two-time gold medallist in the European Championships, winning the 100m in Berlin in 2018 and the 200m in Munich four years later and looks well placed to push for medals next week.
Like Hughes, Asher-Smith is doing the sprint double as she looks to win a maiden world title in the 100m and a second in the 200m, having scooped gold in the longer distance in Doha in 2019.
Asher-Smith's victory four years ago made her the first British woman to win a major global sprint title and she told the BBC recently she is a more complete athlete now: "I'm stronger, faster, technically better and more confident."
The 27-year-old has three individual World Championships medals to date, with that gold in Qatar added to a silver in the 100m in the same competition - the Brit coming second to Jamaica's Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce - and bronze in the 200m in 2022.
Asher-Smith, sixth-fastest in the 100m this year and 12th quickest in the 200m, could face real competition from compatriot Daryll Neita for the best-performing Brit in the 200m - Neita has already beaten Asher-Smith over that discipline this term.
Johnson-Thompson's primary focus is on next summer's Olympic Games in Paris with the Liverpudlian yet to win a medal on that ultimate stage, but she is certainly a contender to to claim a second world heptathlon title - after Doha in 2019 - particularly with two-time Olympic champion Nafi Thiam, of Belgium, missing out with an Achilles problem.
Johnson-Thompson said: "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. What has been done before can be done again.
"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. This is maybe my last heptathlon before Paris, I don't know if I'm going to do another one. It's like a full on dress rehearsal."
Johnson-Thompson ruptured her Achilles in late 2020 and although she returned in time for the Tokyo Games in 2021 she pulled out after injuring her calf in the 200m, while she then finished eighth at last year's World Championships in Oregon.
"I don't know what it's going to take to win [this year]. So that's why I feel like it's open. I could name five people who could finish between first, second and third."
Muir will have the added responsibility of being Team GB captain as she looks to get on the top step of the podium for the first time in a global outdoor event.
The Scot took 1500m bronze in Oregon in 2022 after falling just short of the medals in previous Worlds, while she claimed silver at the 2020 Olympics.
Muir has two golds in the European Championships, in Berlin in 2018 and 2022, and comes into this summer's event after earning her sixth European Indoors gold in Istanbul in March.
The 30-year-old's rivals in Budapest include double Olympic and world champion Faith Kipyegon, who broke the 1500m world record when in June when she ran 3:49.11 in Florence.
At the age of just 21, Hodgkinson has a very bright future, but she is very much dominating in the here and now after running more than a second quicker than anyone else in the women's 800m in 2023.
No one has been able to get near Hodgkinson's 1:55.77, set in France in June, with the Brit looking a good bet to go one better than last year in Oregon, when finished just 0.08 seconds behind America's Athing Mu.
British record holder Hodgkinson's medal collection also includes a silver at the 2020 Olympics, which she won at the age of just 19; two European Indoor Championships golds and outdoor European gold in Munich in 2022.
"I just want to win as many medals as possible and become one of Britain's greatest athletes," Hodgkinson told the BBC recently. She seems well on her way…
