Hunter Bell’s win was an early statement performance in a season that features a Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and European Championships in Birmingham.
The 32-year-old, who won world outdoor 800m silver ahead of Hodgkinson in Tokyo last September, has now returned to the longer distance where she took a remarkable Olympic bronze in 2024.
Faced with a last lap kick from Nikki Hiltz, Hunter Bell moved up alongside the American before going ahead to take the win in her outdoor season debut.
“I felt really happy to come away with the win. The first race of the season is very tough because you don’t know where you are,” Hunter Bell told BBC Sport.
“It’s a big improvement from the 4:00 dead I opened up with last year, which was an improvement from 2024, so all boding well.”
Fellow Britons Jemma Reekie, who pushed to near the front of the field briefly on the approach to the final lap, and Laura Muir finished 11th and 14th with times of 4:05.39 and 4:10.54 respectively.
Hodgkinson, also entering a first race outdoors this year, improved her personal best by 0.47 seconds in the 400m, where she was looking to demonstrate her one-lap potential following a speed-focused training block.
Norway’s Henriette Jaeger won the event in 49.60 seconds, in a field which featured six athletes who had gone sub-50.
Hodgkinson, 24, will now return to the 800m, the distance at which she set a world indoor record in her title win this year and took Olympic gold in Paris.
She will race in Stockholm on Sunday and on consecutive July weekends in Eugene and London, with her intention to topple Czech athlete Jarmila Kratochvilova’s world outdoor record which has stood for 43 years.
