Athletics News
Sports Journalist
Keely Hodgkinson has it all - a world record, Olympic gold, a world gold, and multiple European golds - but next on her list is to break the longest-standing world record in athletics.
On her way to "global domination" the 24-year-old has very little left to achieve, and Hodgkinson is more than determined to keep pushing what is possible.
The women's outdoor 800m world record of 1:53.28 was set by Jarmila Kratochvilova while representing Czechoslovakia, now Czechia, in 1983 in Munich.
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Keely Hodgkinson speaks after winning 800m gold in a championship record time at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Keely Hodgkinson speaks after winning 800m gold in a championship record time at the World Athletics Indoor Championships"I am incredibly happy with how this weekend has gone," Hodgkinson said after claiming her first world indoor title in a championship record time. "It's everything I could have imagined, this whole indoor season.
"I took it week by week and life is so exciting right now, I am enjoying all the twists and turns, the good times - and the lows that come with it.
"I am so excited to build on this, my word for this year was domination, I want global domination and this is a great way to start.
"We have a very exciting summer with the European Championships and everything else.
"I have said for the last couple of years that breaking the world record is possible and I wouldn't have said that if I didn't have evidence in training or seen things where I'm like, 'yeah, I can do it'.
"A lot has to come together for that to happen and there is no timeframe in when or where or whatever."
However, the record that Hodgkinson is confident she can break is one of the most controversial in athletics. There are claims Kratochvilova was using performance-enhancing drugs as part of a systemic doping programme in her country at the time - something she has always denied.
Just two athletes this side of the millennium have come within a second of the record, Kenya's Pamela Jelimo in 2008 and South Africa's Caster Semenya in 2018.
Currently Hodgkinson is sixth on the all-time list with her time of 1:54.61 which won her Olympic gold in 2024. However after a run of good health this indoor season, the Brit is certain that she can take the record.
"I have worked so hard this winter and most importantly I have had uninterrupted training," she added.
"I have managed to do everything, and I think that has shown in my performance and confidence on the track.
"It is very rare when you get a spell as an athlete where you don't have any problems, where there are no niggles in the back of your head.
"I can go into races and focus completely on the job in hand, you have to take advantage of moments like that and that's what we've done. I am a very happy girl."
Alongside Hodgkinson, her training partner Georgia Hunter Bell and Molly Caudery also won gold in their events, taking home three golds for Great Britain in the space of 30 minutes.
Like Hodgkinson, Caudery has had to fight injuries to make it to the top of the podium.
Two years ago Caudery won her first world indoor title, but after not measuring a height at the Olympics and rupturing her ankle ligaments in Tokyo when warming up, when the Brit woke up with a terrible cold on Sunday morning that ever so familiar feeling of dread returned once more.
"It's been heartbreak after heartbreak," Caudery said. "Paris was one thing, and then I was so ready to come back in Tokyo and show the world what I can do and prove it to myself and I didn't even get the chance, which was the worst part.
"So coming back from that was also really tough; physically, coming back from an injury is always hard, but the body mends itself, but mentally, it was so much harder.
"I woke up yesterday morning and I couldn't believe it, I was like, 'oh no'.
"I was thinking, obviously Paris I didn't clear a bar, Tokyo I was out from the warm up and then yesterday, I wasn't sure if I was even going to make it to warm up.
"I just thought, pull yourself together for three hours and I managed to do it."
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