Who is Keely Hodgkinson? Meet Olympic gold medalist and Sports Personality Of The Year contender
KEELY Hodgkinson stunned everyone in 2021 by winning silver at the Tokyo Olympics at the age of 19. She then went one step further and won gold in Paris in 2024.
Here is everything you need to know about the elite runner who has emerged as the front-runner to win BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2024.
Who is Keely Hodgkinson?
In 2002, Keely Hodgkinson was born in the town of Atherton, which is close to Wigan.
Her mother, Rachel, was once a member of the sports team Leigh Harriers, therefore she comes from a running family.
Dean, her father, has previously participated in the London Marathon.
Keely quickly demonstrated her talent for sports, swimming for the Howe Bridge Aces and joining her mother’s Leigh Harriers running club at the age of nine.
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She made a splash at the British Schools Modern Biathlon Championships in London when she was ten years old.
Her father urged her to devote herself full-time to running after she placed second in the 500-meter running competition and seventh in the 50-meter swimming competition.
Keely’s running career was in danger of being interrupted when she underwent surgery in 2015, at the age of 13, to remove a tumor in her ear.
Although the surgery was successful, she was unable to train for a considerable amount of time while she recovered because she was 95% deaf in the damaged ear.
At the age of 16, she broke the championship record by winning the European U18 800m gold and the England U18 and U20 800m.
Keely switched from indoor to outdoor competitions by 2019 and became the youngest person to win the British outdoor title at the age of 18.
After Covid postponements had impacted her athletic career, she made her breakthrough as a senior in 2021.
Before preparing for the Olympics, she won the youngest European Indoor 800m winner in history that year.
Shock Olympic silver
Keely broke Kelly Holmes’ 26-year-old British record by winning a shocking silver medal for Britain in the Tokyo Olympics.
She went on to win two Diamond League golds, two European Championship golds, and two European Indoor Championship golds.
I wanted to demonstrate my ability to win several medals to everyone, not just to myself.
Following the Olympics, Keely opened up about her experience of despair following the realization of her medal ambition.
“I’ve demonstrated my mental toughness,” she said to Team GB. The Olympic comedown is real after Tokyo.
“Being so young and experiencing so many changes in my life was really difficult.
“I became a full-time professional and stopped attending university. I got my own home and moved out, but you had to go through all these changes nevertheless.
Then you think I have to find that motivation again, for a full year, just like I did last year.
“I’m aware that I’ll be more capable of managing that this time. I’m back to truly enjoying it, and I want to enjoy it too.
“I’ll be pleased if I make it to the final and give it my all.
There was no pressure on me after Tokyo. Being a one-hit wonder who just had it at that moment was the only thing I didn’t want.
I wanted to show everyone that I was capable of winning numerous medals, not just myself. Three years later, we have a lot more medals, so it’s still enjoyable!
Keely was a criminology student at Leeds Beckett before making her Olympic debut. She even took a “gap year” to compete in Tokyo, but she is now a full-time athlete.
Paris 2024 gold
On August 5, Keely won the gold medal in the 800m at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, marking the largest accomplishment of her career to date.
The front-running performance by the British athlete dominated the final.
She became just the third British woman to win Olympic gold in the race with her final time of 1:56.72.
“I have really grown over the last couple of years, and this year was the year where you could really tell that I had tried to make that step up,” Keely remarked following the triumph.
SPOTY favourite
Keely was one of six nominees for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award after her Olympic victory.
However, a slight injury put an abrupt stop to her great season.
She declared on social media on August 21st that she will not be attending the Diamond League finals in Brussels or the remainder of the 2024 sporting season.
Keely had a stellar run in 2024, winning all nine of her 800-meter competitions.
She was thankful that she had met her goals for the year despite the injury setback, and she was looking forward to going back to the track in 2025.
When did Keely Hodgkinson break Dame Kelly Holmes’ Olympic record?
The British 800-meter record, held by Dame Kelly Holmes since 1995, was broken with Keely’s 2021 silver medal.
Holmes’ record of 1:56.21 was surpassed by Keely’s time of 1:55.88.
In the process, she also cut two seconds off her personal best.
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Keely smashed the record once more at a Diamond League meet on July 20, 2024, at the Olympic Stadium in London, before her victory in Paris.
With a time of 1:54.61, she became the sixth-fastest woman in history.
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