Hermitage takes inspiration from Farah to triumph in race against the clock

Five years ago, Georgie Hermitage turned up to the London Stadium to watch Mo Farah win Olympic gold and left inspired to try her hand at a spot of running.

Last night, she returned to the capital and won a world title – as twee as it sounds, she just might be the personification of a London 2012 legacy.

A keen club athlete as a child, she had quit at the age of 14 when one of her coaches suggested she should consider disability sport.

Unable to accept that she was physically different to her peers, she walked away from all sport for an entire decade until that fateful day at the London 2012.

Since then she has won two Paralympic golds, claimed two world records and last night she added a third world title to her resume with victory in the T37 400m.

Having effectively ended the race by the first turn, it soon became apparent that it was a race against the clock – one that she won as she strained every sinew to break her own world record and cross the line in one minute 29 seconds.

After injury setbacks had forced her to delay the start of her season, it was a hugely relieved and somewhat stunned Hermitage who posed next to her world record time on the scoreboard. “The main feeling is relief, but I also feel so happy to have won and can’t believe it was in a world record time,” she said.

“The year has been awful so to come out and perform like that is beyond my expectations.

“I had a really good winter after Rio and then had a setback with more bone stress in my leg on my affected side.

“What should have been six weeks off took three months and it was a real slog to get back. There were times when I didn’t think I’d get back.

“Everything fell apart in my life. It happens to a lot of athletes. You come home from the Paralympics and you don’t really know how to cope and that’s what happened to me.

“Everything fell to pieces. But my friends and family picked me back up again.”

Could she have ever envisaged that the woman sat watching Farah five years ago would achieve what she has subsequently done?

“No chance in hell,” she said. “I feel like I’ve done a full circle now.

“I was a very simple girl who worked in a brewery and I loved my job.

“But to be that girl and now to do this is rare and I’m very proud.”

Kyron Duke claimed bronze in the javelin at the last World Championships, but went one better in a different discipline in London having switched to the shot put. Duke threw a season’s best 12.28 metres to claim silver behind Germany’s Niko Kappel, who broke his own world record in winning gold.

European champion Isaac Towers won the first global medal of his career with bronze in the T34 800m. Languishing in seventh turning into the home straight, Towers clung onto the wheels of the eventual gold and silver medallists to storm past a host of rivals and secure his place on the podium.

There was also a bronze medal for Richard Chiassaro in the final event of four he has contested at these championships.

Disqualified for causing a crash in the T54 800m final and having finished out of the medals over 200m and 1500m, Chiassaro claimed 400m bronze by the slenderest of margins.

More than two decades after he won the Paralympic title, Stephen Miller returned to the podium with bronze in the F32 club throw.