Keely Hodgkinson returns to competition at the European Athletics Championships in an unusual position. After breaking the world indoor record over 800m in March, it looked as though the world was at her feet. But the Paris Olympic champion has had a distinctly stop-start outdoor season, troubled by a “freak” injury and dogged by bad luck, and has been beaten resoundingly, twice, by Switzerland’s breakout star Audrey Werro, the fastest woman in the world this year.
With that in mind, does she still believe she is the best in the world, going into a major championships on home soil? On a video call with The Independent and other outlets, she smiles confidently as she says: “Yes, I still believe I’m very much capable of that.
“This is what I trained for, this is the exciting moment. I’ve been doing this for a couple of years now, had lots of people come around and challenge me, and I’ve always been there. I’m proud to have always been in that top segment, I’ve medalled at every single championships. So it’s really great to have the women’s 800 in the spotlight and everyone getting behind us and wanting us to run fast, it’s really exciting.”
The 24-year-old’s outdoor woes began when she fell in training onto a metal grate that left her with cuts to her knees before the Prefontaine Classic in Oregon, where she lost to world champion Lilian Odira. She suffered surprise back-to-back defeats and withdrew in tears from the British national championships earlier this summer, moments before the 400m final, after tweaking her hamstring.
Now she is relaxed about the fall; her knees have healed – “I’ve got some fat scars, but they’re all fine” – and the incident didn’t cause her to miss any training. “It was like, how much pain can I manage? Against these girls, if you’re limping and your back’s out, all these little fine margins can affect your performance.
“I just fell over, it’s a freak accident, who cares? I think people are very quick to judge and don’t really fully know what has happened. I wanted to run, I was there, I flew all the way out. Maybe in hindsight I probably shouldn’t have, but, I was there, I just thought, why not?”
She returned to winning ways on home soil at the London Diamond League last month, but cannot be considered the out-and-out favourite – although she remains a major force – in a glittering field.
Switzerland’s Werro has been the surprise package of the season and is the outright favourite after running the fastest times in the world this year. She won the Diamond League in Stockholm in one minute 53.98 seconds – the third fastest women’s 800m ever and the quickest this year – to leave Hodgkinson a distant second, even with a new personal best and British record time of 1:54.33.
Hodgkinson reflected on that race, saying: “I didn’t know what she was capable of at that point, and I think that just shows you that you can’t underestimate anybody. If you look at all our other head-to-heads, you wouldn’t have thought she was going to hang on. I don’t think I did anything wrong – I think people were trying to make me feel like it was a failure and it really wasn’t. That was a British record, it was my fastest time ever, and I’m going to remind myself of that because I’m proud of that.”
Hodgkinson has become used to being the athlete to beat throughout her young career, a generational talent who wins with ease. This year she has been on the back foot. With Femke Broeders-Bol – having converted her brilliance in her normal discipline of 400m hurdles to the 800m – also a potent force, the 800 is set to be the race of the championships, but it may not go all Hodgkinson’s way.
She is taking a relaxed approach to that. “I’ve obviously got a lot of experience, and experience can be both a positive and a negative thing. Sometimes you overthink more because it’s like, I’ve done it this way, I’ve done it this way. So I just like to go back to basics, like when I was young, upcoming, I didn’t care. I had nothing to lose and I think it’s important for me that I hold on to that and I just race with courage and fearlessness and I think that’s how I’ll get the best out of myself.”
Of the strength of her competition, she says: “I think it definitely just helps motivation-wise. This is what I love about championships. I’ve gone into them ranked eighth in the Olympics in Tokyo, came out with a silver; I’ve gone in as favourite and not won. I think it’s like a bit of a clean slate.
“The standard now in Europe has gone up [over the last few years], so I think the heats, the semis are going to be a lot faster than what we’ve seen in the last couple of years. It does mean you’ve got to bring your A game a bit sooner. But I think that’s a bit better for me because I like to line up and feel like, you know, this matters, I’m gonna have to run fast, I’ve got these girls to run against. I think it’s really exciting, the levels that we have.”
She had initially pencilled in the London Diamond League for an attempt at breaking the infamous world outdoor record, having smashed the world indoor record in March. But it now looks as though Werro, who became the first woman since the controversial Jarmila Kratochvilova to run under 1:54 – twice – in Paris and Stockholm this year, is the best placed to finally topple the Czech’s mark of 1:53.28, which has stood since 1983.
The stage is set for a hugely entertaining race – the only drawback is that newly crowned Commonwealth 800m champion Georgia Hunter Bell is opting not to compete over the distance in Birmingham, focusing on the 1,500m instead.
Hunter Bell and Hodgkinson are training partners and close friends, but the 32-year-old has spoken openly about her desire to double up, racing both the 800m and 1,500m, in future championships, adding yet another rivalry to the 800m field and another dynamic to negotiate for coaches Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows.
Asked whether she would relish the challenge of having another rival over 800m, Hodgkinson says: “If Georgia wants to do that, that doesn’t really affect me. I think it’d be great. Obviously we train together, we push each other really hard, we’re both in really good shape. When we plan our races, I sit down with Trevor and plan mine, she does hers and whatever she feels like she wants to do.
“I think with there being three championships [UK nationals, Commonwealths and Europeans] and her being decisive between the two events, she’s just done what is best for her. But I’m sure there’ll be a time this season that we do match up and it’ll be a good race.”
