Keely Hodgkinson

At the age of 10, Keely Hodgkinson preferred swimming to running but competed in both, swimming with Howe Bridge Aces and running for Leigh Harriers. Ranked 15th, she went among 70 finalists into the 2012 British Schools Modern Biathlon Championships held in the Crystal Palace centre in London. She finished second in the 500 metres run with a personal best of 1m 34.28s and also set a best of 37.02 seconds in the 50m swim to take the eighth place overall.[10] Her father, however, advised her to run, and she was inspired by British heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill winning a gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics.[11][12]

The next year, in 2013, Hodgkinson already had an unbeaten streak of 14 consecutive running events, despite running almost the whole 14th race without the lost shoe. It was the one mile event in which she timed 6m 20s, becoming the first Leigh Harriers' athlete to win the individual under-11 girls' title in both the South East Lancashire League and the Red Rose League.[13] About two weeks later, she ran her 16th undefeated race winning 2000 metres with the lead of 45 seconds.[14] In her first ever fell race in Horwich, climbing Rivington Pike over the distance of 2.2km with a climb of 140 metres in the under-12 category, she finished fourth running in flats.[15]

In 2014, the 12-year-old won three officially recognized 1500 metres events in Wigan, Lancaster and Liverpool, among many others.[5][4] In the British under-13 girls category, she achieved the season's fourth-fastest time at the distance and the fifth-fastest at the 800 metres, with bests of 4m 47.6s and 2m 20.01s respectively. Hodgkinson's 2014 U13 1200m best of 3m 43.2s was bettered only in 2019, remaining, as of August 2021, the second-fastest on the Great Britain's all-time list.[4]

As a teenager, she set many Leigh Harriers' records. Besides her 2012 under-11 60m best, Hodgkinson held, as of August 2021, five club's under-13 girls records (300m, 600m, 800m, 1200m, 1500m), two individual under-15 girls records (800m, one mile), and four under-17 ladies records (300m, 400m, 800m, 1500m).[16]

In 2015, she had to pause and did not compete due to a mastoidectomy surgery to remove a tumour on her ear, which has left her 95% deaf in this ear.[2]

Aged 14, she finished third in the 2016's 800m under-15 events at the English Schools' Championships, and at the England Championships, clocking 2:13.08 and 2m 12.53s respectively. In 2017, competing in the U17 races, Hodgkinson came in fourth at the English Schools' Championships, and took her first gold medal at the England Championships setting new personal best time of 2m 6.85s.[5] She added the 1500m UK national School Games title.[17]

In June 2018, at 16, Hodgkinson became in her specialist 800m event under-20 England Champion with a time of 2:04.41.[18] That same year in July, she won a gold medal at the European U18 Championships held in Győr, Hungary achieving 2:04.84 and breaking the championship record in the process.[2] In August, she added titles at the England U17 Championships running 2:09.38, and at the UK School Games with a competition record of 2:04.89.[5][19] On 12 October, Wigan Borough Council named Hodgkinson Sports Achiever of the Year, selecting her among ten other athletes for its Believe Talent Fund.[20][21] Her 2018 personal best of 2m 4.26s stands, as of August 2021, as the fifth-fastest on the British under-17 all-time list and the fastest since 2011.[4]

In 2019, the 17-year-old came in second at the U20 event of the England Championships clocking 2:05.77, and took a bronze medal at the European U20 Championships held in Borås, Sweden setting new best of 2m 3.40s. Her two years older team-mate, Isabelle Boffey, finished first in 2:02.92 and Hodgkinson lost a silver medal to Switzerland's Delia Sclabas by just 0.04 s.[22]

On 1 February 2020, still 17, Hodgkinson set a European under-20 800m indoor record in a time of 2m 1.16s to win the event at the Indoor Track & Field Vienna competition in Austria. She broke the long-standing 1981 Kirsty Wade's British U20 record of 2:02.88, and a 2015 Aníta Hinriksdóttir's European U20 mark by exactly 0.4 seconds, missing a world under-20 record by just 0.14 s.[23][24] The same month, she went on to take a senior gold medal at the British Indoor Championships clocking 2:04.37. In September, she added senior 800m outdoor title winning British Championships with a time of 2:03.24 to become the youngest winner since 1974.[25][2] Her outdoor season and personal best achieved in September in Rovereto, Italy was 2m 1.73s.[5]

2021 began with a first British women's world under-20 record for 36 years. On 30 January, still 18-year-old Keely Hodgkinson returned, in an unplanned way, for the second year in a row to the Indoor Track & Field Vienna meet. She finally broke 2004 Meskerem Legesse's 800m mark, improving it by exactly 2 seconds in a time of 1m 59.03s.[23][26] The previous British track & field WU20 record was set in 1985 by South Africa's Zola Budd, who competed internationally for the UK in 1985 and 1986.[27] Hodgkinson's record, however, stood for less than a month before being improved upon by her US rival and age-mate Athing Mu with her time of 1:58.40, making Hodgkinson's record a European one.

Four days after her 19th birthday, on 7 March, Hodgkinson became the youngest British winner at the European Athletics Indoor Championships for more than half a century and the youngest ever 800m European indoor champion clocking 2:03.88 in Toruń, Poland. Only Marilyn Neufville had been a younger British gold medallist when winning the 400 metres in 1970 at the age of 17, and Hodgkinson was younger at that time than fellow Briton Jane Colebrook, who became the then youngest European 800m champion in 1977.[28][8][29]

In her first outdoor competition of the season, on 19 May, she broke by almost a second the UK's long-standing junior outdoor record of Charlotte Moore in a time of 1m 58.89s, winning 800m at the Golden Spike meet in Ostrava, Czech Republic.[30] At the end of June, she went on to take her second consecutive British title, earning a place on the Great Britain's Olympic team. She clocked 1:59.61 outsprinting experienced runners Jemma Reekie and Laura Muir in the final 100 metres.[31][32] A week later on 4 July, Hodgkinson further lowered her PB to 1m 57.51s, finishing fourth at the Diamond League meet in Stockholm. She set British U23 record, and became the second fastest European under-20 woman of all time.[33][34]

External images
2021 Tokyo Olympics
Keely Hodgkinson, Team GB

Hodgkinson became Olympic silver medallist at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Games on 3 August, taking almost two seconds off her personal best and almost six seconds off her 2020's PB with a time of 1 minute 55.88 seconds. Known for her finish, she was sixth after first lap and moved from fourth into second after turning for the final straight, finishing behind only Athing Mu who ran 1:55.21. Raevyn Rogers in third was almost one second slower with 1:56.81, but all top five and the seventh woman set their lifetime bests.[35] Hodgkinson broke 1978 Hildegard Körner's European under-20 record of 1:57.45, and 1995 Kelly Holmes' British senior record of 1:56.21. She became the world's fastest junior woman at 800m since 2009 except for Mu, and the fourth-fastest under-20 woman of all time.[36][37][38]

In her first post-Olympic race, she came fifth at the Diamond League USA's Eugene, OR Prefontaine Classic in 1:58.30, and then second at the Brussels Memorial Van Damme in 1:58.16 (losing by just 0.04 s), and first at the Zürich Weltklasse final in 1:57.98 winning the 800m 2021 Diamond trophy.

Great Britain's Team skipped the 2021 World U20 Championships held in Nairobi, Kenya in late August. The women's 800m winning time was there 2:02.96.

• Diamond League champion (800 m): 2021[39]
  • 2021 (1) (800 m): Zürich Weltklasse

• British Championships
  • (2 – 800 m): 2020 Manchester, 2021 Manchester
• British Indoor Championships
  • (1 – 800 m indoor): 2020 Glasgow, 2021 edition cancelled