Olympic champion Keeley Hodgkinson has revealed she wants to break three of athletics’ biggest barriers, going under 50 for the 400m and under four for the 1500m to add to her world-class 800m career.
From Roger Bannister’s four-minute mile to Sebastian Soi’s two-hour marathon, athletes gravitate toward a round number of barriers. Even club runners are drawn to challenges like three hours for a marathon or 20 minutes for a 5km.
Keely Hodgkinson is not immune either. “Wouldn’t it be great to go sub-50, sub-2 minutes and sub-4 minutes in my career?” He says, referring to the 400m, 800m and 1500m targets.
“That would be a really good overall goal to have. Breaking 50 will be tough and I haven’t even run 1500m since I was 16, but it will be a good challenge.”
Hodgkinson’s best time for the 400m is 51.49 from the last indoor season, although he had a 50.10 relay at this year’s World Indoor Championships in Poland.
In the 800m, of course, he is already easily under two minutes, with a British record of 1:54.61 set at the London Diamond League in 2024.
His 1500m best is 4:29.05, but he ran in 2018 after turning 16 and hasn’t covered the distance since.
“It’s a last-ditch idea because I’ve only recently been able to train properly for the 400m,” he added, after an injury-plagued 2025 season.
What will be the hardest barrier to break? “I think breaking 50 seconds will be harder, but I’m not sure. I need to talk to Georgia (Hunter Bell). He keeps asking me when I’m going to run the 1500 meters.
“I think the only person to do that is Caster Semenya (49.62, 1:54.25 and 3:59.92), so it would be great to finish my career doing it all.”
Hodgkinson was speaking about the 2026 Diamond League in London, also known as the Novuna London Athletics Meet, 50 days away, where he will run the 800m.
Another of her targets is Yarmila Kratochvilova’s long-standing world record of 1:53.28, although unlike Josh Kerr’s bold public ambitions to break the world mile record at the meeting, she is unsure at this stage whether she will fully commit to breaking Kratochvilova’s mark at the London Stadium on July 18.
“Obviously, I’d like it to happen on home soil,” he says. “As a Brit competing there it’s great fun and the main thing I’m looking forward to this summer.
“We’ll have a plan A of what we want to happen, but sometimes sports have plans. I can get in shape to be able to start sooner, or maybe later in the season. Now my preparation has gone very well and I am very happy. It’s been a year since I’ve been healthy, which is really fun, and I haven’t missed a really good workout.”
Hodgkinson says he sees the summer of 2026 as a season of two halves. “The first half is the diamond leagues like London and the second half brings all the leagues.”
He is unlikely to compete at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, but he is keen to defend his 800m title at the European Championships in Birmingham, which brings us to another goal.
He says: “I now have four European titles, two indoors and two outdoors, and one of my small goals is to break Laura Muir’s tally of European titles. I think he has about seven (two outdoors, five indoors), which is crazy.”
First, Hodgkinson will run the 400m at the Diamond League in Rome next Thursday (June 4) before the 800m in Stockholm. “The 400 meters is a bit of fun and something else,” he says.
“The system is crazy in Rome, so I’m really throwing myself in there. It’s great to put myself in a position where on paper I’m probably the slowest player and compete against girls who are world finalists and tournament medalists.
“I’ve always considered myself a 400/800m athlete and I don’t think I’ve shown my potential in the 400m, although I’ve had a bit of an idea of ​​what I can do during the indoor season. If I can get to that 400m, the first lap of the 800m will feel good.”
Not as pretty as winning in London though. “Racing on home soil in the Diamond League is probably what I’m looking forward to the most this summer,” he says.
