Hodgkinson prepares for first Titos of the world
By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2026 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved.
TORUŃ (March 19) — Life has been pretty good for Olympic 800m gold medalists lately Keeley Hodgkinson. The 24-year-old Briton, who represents Nike, has had a short but sweet season that will come to an end this weekend at the 21st World Indoor Athletics Championships at the Kujawsko-Pomorska Arena in Toruń. Hodgkinson, who missed the 2025 indoor season after suffering a hamstring tear last February, comes to Toro as a gold medal favorite after setting a new 800m (short track) world record of 1:54.87 in Lieuvin.
“I was just grateful to get to the starting line,” Hodgkinson said at a press conference here today. “I really believed it that day. I knew I was going to do it.”
But as this year began, Hodgkinson had a more measured outlook. Before he was healthy enough to compete last September World Athletics Championships in Tokyo and won a bronze medal, after last year’s setbacks, she wanted to take it one step at a time this indoor season. She put her faith in coaches Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows, the 800m silver medalist at the 2010 World Indoor Championships, and got to work.
“I didn’t really set any goals, nothing,” Hodgkinson explained of early-season training with her M-11 Track Club teammates, including Olympic medalist Georgia Hunter Bell. “I was more like, I told my coach, I don’t want to know where you want me, I don’t know when you want me to compete, I just want to go through every week, every training camp and see how it goes.
At the British Indoor Championships in Birmingham, he opened his season with a national indoor record of 1:56.33 (he announced before the meet that he would not run in the final). Instead, he mustered all his strength for his world record attempt five days later in France. She beat the previous mark of 1:55.82 set by Slovenia’s Yolanda Ceplak 24 years ago by almost a full second. His performance was especially gratifying given last year’s interrupted indoor season.
“I think it’s hard for any athlete when you just want to compete,” Hodgkinson explained. “You just want to compete and you do all this training to get out there. Every time I tried, I was like, I put it back, I started again. The recovery, the months and months, was definitely taxing on the mind. Lots of disappointments.”
Interestingly, Hodgkinson says the time away from competition has given her extra perspective and allowed her to pursue some of her interests outside of athletics.
“I always say now, looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing,” Hodgkinson said. “I think it was an important moment for me. I learned a lot about myself. I took time off the track to just enjoy my life, to have some quiet time, and it made me a better athlete.”
Here in Torun, Hodgkinson cleared one significant hurdle to gold yesterday when it was announced that 2024 world 800m champion Tsige Duguma of Ethiopia would not compete because he was unable to obtain a visa to travel to Poland. However, Hodgkinson faces credible challenges from Switzerland’s Audrey Verreau, Kenya’s Gladys Chepngetich and United States’ Eddie Wiley. She said she was particularly excited to compete because, despite all her achievements, she had never competed at the World Indoor Championships.
“It’s the only medal I don’t have,” said Hodgkinson, who has won four consecutive 800m gold medals at the European Championships (indoor and outdoor) from 2021 to 2024. Excited to be here, excited to compete. Let’s see what happens.
Also today, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe was clearly pleased to hold these championships in Poland, where athletics is quite popular. He called it “one of the breadbaskets of European athletics”.
“The World Indoors brings together the best athletes in the world,” said Coe, a two-time Olympic 800m champion in 1980 and 1984. “It’s fast, intense, unforgettable competition. It’s an intimate seat and place for our fans. It really brings our sport to the fore when I think about us when I think about us. We’re really looking forward to three days of exciting action.”
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The World Indoor Athletics Championships will open at 10:05 CET tomorrow. The home page for these championships, which includes a country-by-country list of where the championships will be broadcast, is here.
https://worldathletics.org/
Editor’s Note: 1st session in the 800 meter run held on Friday. Keely Hodgkinson led from the start and won in 2:00.32. Keeley looked good, so did Audrey Vero, Eddie Wiley. Semi-finals on Saturday! ,
