Amy Hunt’s strong late-season form showed no signs of letting up as she clocked a season’s best 22.16 seconds, just eight hundredths off her lifetime best, to finish third in 200m at the Diamond League final in Brussels.
The Briton, who picked up four gold medals at the European Championships in Birmingham last month, was beaten by St Lucia’s Julien Alfred, the fastest women over the distance this year, who took victory in 21.79, and American Kayla White in 22.00.
“I’m really really proud of that one,” Hunt told BBC World Service.
“That was probably one of the best bends I’ve ever done, if not the best. I could feel I was so close to Julian, then the long season kind of caught out to me in the last 20 metres.”
A third-place finish continues Hunt’s upward trajectory in the finale of the 15-stop elite circuit.
She came fifth and sixth respectively in the 2025 and 2024 Diamond League finals over 200m.
Hunt will also run in the 100m event on Saturday night, drawn alongside American Olympic silver medallist Sha’Carri Richardson, and intends to similarly double up at the inaugural Ultimate Championships event in Budapest, which begin on 11 September.
“We train over 400 metres and the longest recovery we have in winter sessions is 45 seconds,” added Hunt.
“I’m out there doing the really long reps back to back to back and that’s enabling me to do this really packed schedule.”
Hunt finished furthest up the results list of any of the Britons in action.
Matt Hudson-Smith was fifth in the 400m, well off Botswana’s world champion Collen Kebinatshipi, while Jake Hayward, running in his Wales vest, was eighth in a captivating 1500m race.
Australian 20-year-old Cameron Myers expertly picked a path to victory, edging out Kenyan teenager Phanuel Koech. Their rivalry could play out over plenty more big stages in the future.
Elsewhere, world champion Oblique Seville took the 100m in 9.90 seconds and Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi won his fourth successive Diamond League title over 800m.
After Sweden’s Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis opted not to compete in the pole vault final after feeling tightness in his leg, his Greek rival Emmanouil Karalis, who has climbed to second in the event’s all-time list this year, took centre stage and victory with a 6.12m clearance.
While Duplantis is doubt for the all-star Ultimate Championships event, one of its biggest names will definitely be missing from the startlists after Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles announced an injury-enforced early end to his season.
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