Teenage star Hollingsworth posts Olympic 800m time

Claudia Hollingsworth has downed training partner Bendere Oboya in an 800m classic in Canberra.

Teen sensation Claudia Hollingsworth has lit up the Canberra Track Classic, smashing her 800m personal best and bettering the Olympic qualifying standard for the first time.

Shaving a full second off her personal best time, the 18-year-old finished in one minute 58.81 seconds on Saturday, comfortably going below the Olympic mark by nearly half a second.

Tokyo Games competitor Bendere Oboya gave training partner Hollingsworth a genuine scare as she stuck right on her heels into the straight while posting her own Olympic benchmark.

Remarkably, Oboya stripped nearly three seconds off her personal best and broke the two-minute mark for the first time at 1:59.01.

Australia now has four competitors under the 800m qualifier – the duo join Abbey Caldwell and Catriona Bisset – with April’s national championships to play a huge part in shaping the three-athlete team for the Paris Games.

Hollingsworth was adamant she wasn’t expecting such a quick time in Canberra, but certainly wasn’t complaining about having hit the mark.

“I’ve been training pretty hard so it’s nice to see that paying off, but definitely not at all (did I expect to run the Olympic time),” she said.

“It’s just really exciting to see I’ve still got so much time in the season to see what we can do.

“It’s obviously everyone’s dream for this Australian season to get it ticked off … and for it to happen so early.

“I went in quite relaxed and just thought on emotions it was going to be a fast pace.

“(It was) an exciting time hearing I’d ran the qualifying time over the speaker.”