Women’s 800m Round 1 Summary
Maria Mutola – aiming to capture an historic fourth consecutive 800m title – made no mistakes in her qualifying round. She let Lwiza Myani John of Tanzania and Hasna Benhassi of Morocco take on the pace-making duties before taking the lead on the back straight. She finished in 2:02.96 but heat 1 had the toughest field with Ludmila Formanova (2:00.49) Natalya Tsyganova (2:00.77), Meredith Rainey-Valmon (2:01.41), Malin Ewerlof (2:02.23) and Letitia Vriesde (2:02.51) - all faster than the Mozambican.
