Keely Hodgkinson

Keely Nicole Hodgkinson, born on 3 March 2002, is an English middle-distance runner specialising in the 800 metres. She is an Olympic champion, World Indoor champion, and two-time European champion over the distance. Hodgkinson holds the indoor world record and outdoor British record for the 800 metres, and is a four-time national champion across indoor and outdoor competitions.

Hodgkinson grew up in Atherton, Greater Manchester, and attended Fred Longworth High School, where she was friends with future footballer Ella Toone. She later attended Loughborough College and enrolled in a criminology degree at Leeds Beckett University before leaving to focus on athletics. At age nine, she joined Leigh Harriers and initially combined middle-distance running with swimming at Howe Bridge Aces. At age 13, she underwent a mastoidectomy to remove an ear tumour, which left her 95 percent deaf in that ear.

Inspired by the 2012 Summer Olympics, Hodgkinson progressed through youth competitions, securing gold at the European Athletics U18 Championships in 2018. In 2019, coaches Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows began working with her in Manchester. She made her senior international debut in 2020, setting a European U20 indoor record in Vienna before winning both the British indoor and outdoor 800-metre titles.

In 2021, Hodgkinson won gold at the European Indoor Championships in Toruń and later secured a silver medal at the delayed 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Her Olympic performance broke the long-standing British record set by Kelly Holmes in 1995. She completed the 2021 season by winning the Diamond League 800-metre title. In 2022, she set a British indoor record of 1:57.20 in Birmingham, though a quad injury forced her to withdraw from the World Indoor Championships. Later that year, she earned silver medals at both the World Championships and the Commonwealth Games before claiming her first senior European outdoor title in Munich.

During the 2023 season, Hodgkinson set a world indoor record in the 600 metres with a time of 1:23.41 and defended her European Indoor 800-metre title. She also secured silver at the World Championships in Budapest and lowered her outdoor British 800-metre record to 1:55.19. In 2024, she retained her European outdoor title and improved her British record to 1:54.61 in London. At the 2024 Summer Olympics, she won the gold medal in the 800 metres, leading the final race to finish ahead of Tsige Duguma and Mary Moraa.

Following her Olympic victory, Hodgkinson was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year for 2024 and was awarded an MBE in the 2025 New Year Honours list. Despite an injury-affected 2025 season, she earned a bronze medal at the 2025 World Athletics Championships. In 2026, she won the World Indoor title in Toruń and subsequently claimed a silver medal at the European Athletics Championships.