Jenny Meadows on regaining her faith in athletics, finding the joy of coaching and what lies ahead for the British 800m star this summer.
If, as they say, “a happy athlete is a fast athlete,” it’s no coincidence that Keely Hodgkinson is grinning from ear to ear in 2026. Capturing his first career indoor world title last month brought the curtain down on an exceptional and eventful winter that could hardly have gone better.
The 24-year-old’s exploits have also brought smiles to the faces of his coaching team, husband-and-wife duo Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows, whose approach is making a real mark on the sport. In fact, for Meadows, seeing the Manchester-based M11 training group doing his thing has not only helped restore his faith in athletics, but also “healed his heart”.
It’s now 10 years since the 44-year-old’s international 800m career, which has included four international medals, could have included more, given that she missed athletes who later tested positive for doping.
“It means a lot,” she says, speaking to him AW: at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow in early March, where Hodgkinson and coaching partner Georgia Hunter Bell were packing for Torun. “I never wanted to go into coaching, but being married to Trevor (who coached Meadows) he was always going to continue and he got me involved about six weeks after he retired, teaching some athletes.
“I think sometimes you don’t realize how much you know. I absolutely love it now and I think it has healed my heart a bit because I was quite doubtful towards the end of my career. It all seemed too good to be true. Very often (it happened). So I’d rather get involved from the inside knowing you can.
“You can only vouch for the athletes you are involved with. These guys train really, really hard and I know you can be the best in the world doing clean. It was a 180 (degree change) for me. I feel I have a lot to give to the sport. (The athletes) told me I was making a difference, so that’s always good. I can’t imagine doing anything else right now.”
If there’s one thing Meadows is still trying to understand about his old event, it’s how quickly things moved when he left the track. He does, of course, coach the current indoor world record holder and admits to being astounded by the nature of the modern 800m.
“I have to cringe when I think about these times that are being managed now,” he says. “I’m an old school athlete. I’ve never run in super shoes, they (now) have pacemakers and wave lights, recovery is so much better now. If I look at the whole team, behind Keely and Georgia, for example, they have full-time staff, therapists, physios.
“I was expecting to train with a lot of people who were working or at college and Trevor was working full-time so I was training on club nights. Now I look at what these guys got and I can understand why the advances in the sport, but they work. so, so hard.
“It’s only been 10 years since I retired and it’s almost a completely different sport. But they work so hard and I don’t begrudge them in any way. They deserve these opportunities.”
And athletes carry them. Hodgkinson and Hunter Bell will now head to a summer of Commonwealth Games, European Championships and the ultimate championships with world titles and gold medals to their name.
For the Olympic champion, “dominion” has been his watchword for 2026, and he seems fully intent on producing just that on the track, fueled by the thought of making up for time lost to injury in 2025.
“It really hurt him last year not being able to compete until August,” Meadows said. “This winter was the first proper winter Kiel has had in three years. So we really have to look back at the end of 2022 as the last time we’ve gone through all the training phases.
“And he wasn’t happy with that (world) bronze in Tokyo. He won a medal, he never stopped training, but it was almost like he was in base training for a whole year. Imagine just having to endure an entire year with no training rounds, no rewards. It was pretty tough, but still running 2 times under 1:54 shows.
“But because he’s had those months of consistent training this winter, he’s been getting some outdoor time indoors, and I’m very excited about that. I think he’ll run that 1:53 he’s been so desperate to run. Whether it’s (a world record) 1:53.28 we’ll see, but it was 1:45 in London on the 2nd. watch for the first time and now he is really looking forward to the moment when he sees the clock 1:53.
Hodgkinson has been open about targeting Yarmila Kratochvilova’s world record, and recently took to social media to gauge opinion about the potential use of male sensor pacemakers in the women’s race; an approach that contradicts existing rules. The challenge is finding female pacers who can hit those speeds, Hodgkinson’s argument being that any woman capable of such an attempt at this point will potentially be looking to either win the race or break the record herself.
Meadows thinks it’s an interesting discussion point and argues that, similar to Faith Kipyegon’s Breaking4 project last year, even a non-conformist show can be a very worthwhile exercise.
“Faith Kipyegon had a number of accelerators doing different things, and it was a test and a challenge, rather than a legitimate record,” he says. “I think as an athlete you always want to challenge yourself and I think it would be good to have conversations with somebody, even if it’s not a valid world record, just to let Kelly know she’s done it and maybe if she comes back to the women’s race, she’ll think: before the event.”
Undoubtedly, Hodgkinson’s speeches also took a step forward. his World Indoor Championships record came five years after he won his first title at the European Indoor Championships, also in Torun, as a 19-year-old. How has Meadows seen her change over that time?
“He’s more in tune with his body now,” she says. “I think his goals are very self-centered, and Trev and I always go for those goals. He listened to us a lot for confidence and still does. (for Lievin’s world record) he specifically asked. And it wasn’t the indoor world record (he was talking about it). It was 1:53.
“It’s great that he still wants that opinion, but he also has confidence. Now he knows the numbers, he understands how the sport works, how our training works, and he’s driven very hard, e.g.
Working to get stronger, to make herself stronger, the European champion has also put in a markedly different performance this year, a topic she doesn’t shy away from discussing publicly. In doing so, Meadows argues, Hodgkinson has only strengthened her credentials as a role model.
“I’m glad she said recently that she’s heavier when she gets on the scale,” she says. “Women think it’s a negative thing, but it’s just a product of her growth and where her body needs to be. If I look back at how she was in Paris, she was 54kg and she was actually quite thin for me, but she’s turning into her grown woman body now. He’s 60kg, but he’s doing it for the event, not anyone’s ideas.
“I really respect Keeley for that, because even now I still look at the scale and what I weigh and get excited about it, but Keeley looks at it from a performance perspective. I respect him. it’s more that he just knows what he wants from sports, and he’s ready to do it.”
