Keely Hodgkinson has set her sights on taking down one of athletics’ longest-standing marks after opening her season with a statement victory at the World Indoor Championships in Toruń. The 24-year-old won the indoor 800m in championship-record time and then ran in the 4x400m less than an hour later, underlining the form and grit behind her rapid rise.
Hodgkinson says her goal for the year is “domination” — “global domination,” she added — and believes the indoor title is a strong launching point. The record she’s targeting is the women’s outdoor 800m world record of 1:53.28, set by Jarmila Kratochvilova in Munich in 1983. That time has stood for four decades and remains controversial because of longstanding allegations about state-sponsored doping in that era, which Kratochvilova denies.
Currently sixth on the all-time list with her 1:54.61 from the 2024 Olympics, where she won gold, Hodgkinson says a healthy, uninterrupted winter of training has boosted her confidence that the record is attainable. She accepts that breaking 1:53.28 will require perfect conditions and many things to align, but says her training has shown her it’s possible. Since 2000 only two women — Pamela Jelimo in 2008 and Caster Semenya in 2018 — have come within a second of that mark.
Hodgkinson’s indoor success came alongside strong results from teammates and training partners. Georgia Hunter Bell and Molly Caudery also picked up golds at the World Indoors, giving Great Britain three titles in roughly half an hour. Caudery’s win was a particularly emotional comeback: after Olympic heartbreak, a ruptured ankle ligament in Tokyo during warm-up and a heavy cold on the day of the final, she rallied to claim gold and described the return as a battle of both body and mind.
Hodgkinson now turns her focus to a busy summer that includes the European Championships. With Olympic, world and multiple European titles already on her CV, she says only a few achievements remain to further define her legacy — and the elusive 1:53.28 is at the top of that list.