Keely Hodgkinson has the potential to usher in a “golden era” for British athletics at the Paris Olympics. Her exceptional talent and recent successes position her as a leading contender, inspiring hope and excitement among fans and fellow athletes. Hodgkinson’s performances could elevate the entire British athletics team, encouraging high standards and greater achievements. Her journey and success may motivate a new generation of athletes, contributing to a revitalized and thriving athletic community in the UK.
Keely Hodgkinson really should have won her first world 800 metres title last summer. That’s what the numbers said, and athletics is nothing if not a numbers game.
With her main rival, America’s Olympic champion Athing Mu, struggling for form, fitness and fire after the upheaval of turning professional, Hodgkinson lined up in the final last August as the fastest in the field that year. The race was hers to lose. And lose she did, outsprinted down the home straight by Kenya’s Mary Moraa
Never again, she vowed. Never again would she be defeated in a major final. And never again would she trust the numbers.
“A championship is a completely clean slate for me,” she insisted on Saturday after an astonishing 800m performance to rank sixth fastest of all time. “I’ve come into championships ranked 10th and finished second. I was world number one last year and finished second. Times aren’t everything so for me it’s a case of getting to the final and then we’ll start thinking about medals.
Us humble spectators are not constrained by such mental chicanery, freeing up the not-so-bold prediction of Hodgkinson being as nailed on to win Olympic gold in Paris next month as any British athlete in recent decades. After her performance at last weekend’s London Diamond League, defeat is bordering on unthinkable for British athletics’ queen-in-waiting.
The extent of Hodgkinson’s victory – coming in a time of 1 minute 54.61 seconds, the fastest in the world since 2018 – was such that it even prompted the question of whether Jarmila Kratochvilova’s world record of 1.53:28 from 1983 might soon be beatable. That Hodgkinson suggested it betrayed the true level of her expectations.
