BUDAPEST, HUNGARY:

PACE AND plenty of patience helped Natoya Goule-Toppin and Adelle Tracey comfortably through the opening round the of the women’s 800 metres at the National Athletics Centre in Budapest, Hungary, yesterday.

All of the seven heats at these World Athletics Championships were won in sub-two-minute times with what was once exceptional now becoming the norm for the metric half-mile event.

Goule-Toppin, bidding to make a third successive World Championships final, chased home defending champion Athing Mu, of the USA, in a time of 1:59.64 minutes.

Tracey, having smashed the national record when just failing to make the 1500m final earlier in the week, ran confidently, despite avoiding a yellow card for having a foot over the start line and then getting badly boxed in during the final lap.

She also finished second in a season’s best 1:59.92 to progresses to tomorrow’s 1:25 p.m. semi-finals as the first three in each of the heats and next three fastest made it through.

“It’s the first round ,so you can’t do too much, but enough to make it to the next round,” said Goule-Toppin, who was isolated several metres behind Mu but an equal distance ahead of the rest for much of the race.

She warmed up by running a leg of the mixed 4x400m relay on the opening day of competition in Budapest and added:

“When you go faster than what you normally would, that helps in the 800.

“I train with boys, and they are always a long way ahead of me, so it really didn’t feel different that she (Mu) was ahead of me - felt like I was in practice.

“This is actually my fastest opener at a major championships, and I’m definitely way ahead of where I was last year in Oregon where I think I did two minutes.”

Temperatures again quickly soared into the 30s in the mid-morning Hungarian sun, with the Jamaican record holder Goule-Toppin explaining how she kept fresh for her opener.

“It was hot, but I stayed hydrated and kept throwing water at myself to cool down.”

Tracey, still based in Britain but training for up to three months of the year at altitude, has also had to find ways to deal with the heat.

“We’ve now got a day’s [Thursday] rest, which is so unusual for the 800.

“I felt it was hotter last Sunday for the semi-finals of the 1500, but I’ve been wearing an ice jacket and trying to keep cool – warming up in the shade and staying out of the sun as much as possible.”

The Seattle-born ex-Great Britain athlete added of the early scares:

“I didn’t think my foot was on the line, but it didn’t affect me – I just had to reset.

“With the 800 it’s just about keeping patient, and I back myself that I’m strong in the home straight at the moment.

“I probably could have navigated the home straight a little better, but there are always things to improve on.

“The 800 is always fun after the 1500, but you learn stuff from both, and as long as I can do both, I will.”