Keely Hodgkinson

About Keely Hodgkinson

Keely Nicole Hodgkinson (born 3 March 2002) is an English middle-distance runner specialising in the 800 metres. At the age of 19, she won the silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, breaking the British record set by Kelly Holmes in 1995. Hodgkinson is the 2022 and 2023 World Championships as well as the 2022 Commonwealth Games silver medallist, 2022 European champion and a two-time European indoor champion from 2021 and 2023, with her 2021 title secured as the youngest ever continental women's indoor 800 m winner.

Specialising in one of the toughest events in athletics which combines both endurance and speed, with many "unbreakable" female records and top marks set in the 1980s, she progressed very well into the senior ranks. In February 2022, Hodgkinson set a British 800 m indoor record (improved in 2023), placing her sixth on the respective world all-time list,[6] and then lowered her national outdoor record twice in 2023, becoming faster than any other British woman in history of the event by more than a second and entering the top ten on the outdoor global all-time list. She also holds world indoor best in the 600 metres and was the 2021 and 2023 Diamond League 800 m champion.

At age 16, she became the 800 m European U18 champion and won England's U20 title. A year later, she took bronze at the European U20 Championships. Hodgkinson was the first junior woman in history to break the two-minute barrier in the indoor event. Both her Tokyo result and junior indoor best are European U20 records, which made her at 800 m the fourth- and the second-fastest U20 woman of all time respectively. She is a four-time British national champion.