Keely Hodgkinson could rival Jessica Ennis-Hill as one of Britain’s biggest Olympic stars and has revealed how the London 2012 heptathlon changed her life.
Hodgkinson was only 10 years old at the time and had already shown herself to be a promising all-round athlete. She combined cross-country running with a foray into track events. However, in early 2012 she shifted her focus to swimming.
“I’m just not in love with it anymore [athletics] “I didn’t like it for a while – I was doing okay, but I just didn’t feel like training,” she says. “I was swimming a lot… and then I looked at 2012 and I saw Jess doing it. She was the golden girl everywhere, and that really inspired me to go back, to actually want to do the heptathlon. I did have a go at javelin. But then I thought, ‘I’m just going to do the 800m.’”
It was a choice that was rewarded within six years with the European under-20 title and within nine years she was standing on the Olympic podium in Tokyo with a silver medal around her neck. Hodgkinson has since followed that up with two silver World Championship titles, a fourth European title and a new British record.
It’s no wonder then that she begins by saying, with a smile, “But I haven’t let you down yet, have I?” in response to a question about whether we’ll see an even faster runner this summer. She began her outdoor season by emphatically beating Kenyan world champion Mary Moraa and believes her Olympic preparations may have been boosted by a serious winter injury.
It was previously reported that Hodgkinson had suffered a setback that would force her to miss the World Indoor Championships, but it has now emerged that she will miss nine weeks from November to January with a torn ligament and tendon, which extends into her hamstring. “For the first two weeks I couldn’t do any cardio because I couldn’t bend my knee,” she said. “Then I was on my bike and the cross trainer. It was torture. I had to be patient. It wasn’t ideal. It was a freak accident.
“My physical therapist thinks I sprained my ankle [training] in Font Romeu and the damage went all the way to my knee. I kept running on it, thinking it was something else, and then it tore. I had to trust the process.
“That was a blessing in disguise – it allowed me to spend two weeks straight improving my endurance, getting stronger in the gym and improving my speed. I really feel like this year is hopefully the best I’ve ever done. I want to attack every race… to see how far I can push myself.”
The sporting culture in this country has undoubtedly changed in recent years, making it a major challenge for athletics to reach the general public, especially outside the Olympic Games.
Hodgkinson believes that recent initiatives by World Athletics to introduce prize money for gold medals at the Olympic Games and launch the lucrative new biennial World Ultimate Championship event are encouraging steps.
“I don’t think anyone would turn down an offer of $50,000 [£39,400 for a gold]she says. “I think it’s great. I know the Olympic motto is about competing as amateurs, but we’ve gotten to the point where when you compete in the Olympics, you’re not an amateur anymore. You’re a professional. That’s true in any sport.
“Athletics is notoriously unstable if you don’t win the top medals. It has to start at the top, but hopefully it goes down.” Hodgkinson, who went to school in Manchester with England Lioness Ella Toone, then cites the example of women’s football. “They’ve put so much money into it since the Euros that it’s now going to the clubs and helping the grassroots. Hopefully we can do something similar.”
Hodgkinson, just 22, has been joined on the Olympic 800m team by 17-year-old Phoebe Gill. Earlier this year she ran a phenomenal time of 1min 57.86sec and then qualified for Paris with a time of 1min 58.67sec at the British Championships, which doubled as an Olympic qualifying event.
Hodgkinson says her jaw dropped when she heard about the first of those two runs, which was less than three seconds off her then British record and the best ever by a European athlete under the age of 18.
“She’s so young – I wouldn’t put any pressure on her at all,” says Hodgkinson. “She just needs to take her time, not get carried away and just get on with what she’s doing. It’s clearly working. She just needs to have fun.”
A version of this article was first published in June
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