Jasmine Trapnell
Sports activities Journalist
After her World Indoor Champion run in Torun, Keely Hodgkinson has set her eyes firmly on breaking the longest-standing report in athletics; Hodgkinson’s ‘international domination’ is nicely underneath approach after she ran within the 4x400m lower than an hour after successful 800m gold with a championship report
Final Up to date: 23/03/26 1:31pm
Keely Hodgkinson received gold within the ladies’s 800 meters at World Athletics Indoor Championships in Torun with a Championship Report
Keely Hodgkinson has all of it – a world report, Olympic gold, a world gold, and a number of European golds – however subsequent on her record is to interrupt the longest-standing world report in athletics.
On her option to “global domination” the 24-year-old has little or no left to attain, and Hodgkinson is greater than decided to maintain pushing what is feasible.
The ladies’s outside 800m world report of 1:53.28 was set by Jarmila Kratochvilova whereas representing Czechoslovakia, now Czechia, in 1983 in Munich.
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Keely Hodgkinson speaks after successful 800m gold in a championship report time on the World Athletics Indoor Championships
“I am incredibly happy with how this weekend has gone,” Hodgkinson stated after claiming her first world indoor title in a championship report time. “It’s everything I could have imagined, this whole indoor season.
“I took it week by week and life is so thrilling proper now, I’m having fun with all of the twists and turns, the great occasions – and the lows that include 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’ve a really thrilling summer season with the European Championships and the whole lot 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’.
“Quite a bit has to come back collectively for that to occur and there’s no timeframe in when or the place or no matter.”
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’ve labored so laborious this winter and most significantly I’ve had uninterrupted coaching,” she added.
“I’ve managed to do the whole lot, and I believe that has proven in my efficiency and confidence on the monitor.
“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 fully on the job in hand, it’s important to make the most of moments like that and that is what we have performed. I’m a really pleased lady.”
Fighting back from heartbreak to being a role model
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.
Georgia Hunter Bell, Molly Caudery and Keely Hodgkinson won their events at the World Indoor Championships within just 30 minutes of each other
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.
Molly Caudery fought again from heartbreak and a chilly on the day to take again her world indoor title from 2024
“It has been heartbreak after heartbreak,” Caudery said. “Paris was one factor, after which I used to be so prepared to come back again in Tokyo and present the world what I can do and show it to myself and I did not even get the prospect, which was the worst half.
“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 awakened yesterday morning and I could not imagine it, I used to be 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 simply thought, pull your self collectively for 3 hours and I managed to do it.”
