World Indoor 800m favourite Keely Hodgkinson: "I expect more of myself now"

In just her third season as a senior, Keely Hodgkinson is already a big name in British middle-distance running.

The 20-year-old took Olympic 800m silver at Tokyo 2020 behind American teenager Athing Mu and has carried that form indoors.

The Team GB star will run the 800m and 4x400m relay at her first World Athletics Indoor Championships, her second global event.

Her first was nothing short of spectacular, breaking double Olympic champion Kelly Holmes' 26-year-old British record to claim silver.

She is already ahead of schedule for 2022 having broken the British indoor record at February's Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix.

"I wrote down the aims for this year and one of them was a British indoor record," Hodgkinson told reporters afterwards. "I was 100 per cent in shape for this record and I just wanted to go for it."

Hodgkinson will hope to continue that form in Belgrade as she seeks to "become one of the greatest ever".

The making of an Olympic star

When Hodgkinson crossed the finish line at the Olympic Stadium last August, she was stunned by her time.

Her 1:55.88 in the women’s 800m final, was nearly two seconds faster than her previous personal best set a month earlier in Stockholm.

She had kicked from fifth on the final bend to split Americans Mu and Raevyn Rogers.

Wigan native Hodgkinson preferred swimming to running as a child before being convinced to switch by her father.

As a young teenager, she was unable to run for a year after having a tumour removed which left her almost completely deaf in one hear.

She told the Guardian, "It had grown for 10 years and no one had spotted it. It was so close to my nervous system that I could have had facial palsy if it had touched the nerve. So it was a bit risky getting it out.

"It wasn’t cancerous or anything. But because of how fragile it was, due to the spinal cord, it meant that I couldn’t walk too fast and it was a very long process back. Now it is more annoying because I’m 95 per cent in one ear. So when people are wearing masks and are talking I struggle – it’s made me realise how much I rely on lip reading.”

Hodgkinson started to make her mark in 2018 when she won the English U20 title, while still 16, and then gold at the the European U18 Championships in Hungary.

She continued to progress in the junior ranks and, at the start of the 2020 indoor season in February, ran 2:01.16 in Vienna to break the European U20 record.

The British indoor title came next and, in September after the postponement of Tokyo 2020, Hodgkinson claimed the outdoor title as well.

Despite those accolades, and with fierce competition for places at the rescheduled Olympic Games, her initial target for the 2021 season was the World Athletics U20 Championships.

But she gave notice of what was to come in her opening race of the year indoors, running a scintillating 1:59.03 in Vienna to break the world U20 record.

Victory followed at the European Indoors in Torun and, on her outdoor seasonal debut, she broke the magic two-minute barrier and the European U20 record to win at the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava.

Then she beat proven world-class rivals Jemma Reekie and Laura Muir to take the British 800m title in Manchester and book her spot in Tokyo.

A week later, she was fourth in the Diamond League in Stockholm behind Cuba's Rose Mary Almanza having given herself too much to do behind a fast first lap, but still took more than a second off her personal best.

While that performance may not have suggested a medal in Tokyo was likely, the runner - coached by Trevor Painter and double world 800m bronze medallist Jenny Meadows - showed maturity beyond her years through the rounds and then in the final, charging home to take silver behind Mu.

And there should be plenty more to come.

Keely Hodgkinson: "I want to go out there and do my best in every race"

Hodgkinson followed up that silver medal with victory in the Diamond League Final in Zurich, her first win in a Diamond League race.

And after Achilles and quad injuries delayed her season start, she is certainly making up for lost time.

Her 2022 debut came at the Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix on 19 February, and she could not have made a stronger statement.

She took an emphatic victory in a new British record of 1:57.20 which was also the fastest indoor 800m run in 20 years.

By strange coincidence, she was born on the exact same day that Jolanda Ceplak set the world record of 1:55.82 at the 2002 European Indoor Championships.

Hodgkinson told World Athletics recently, “I definitely got a lot of confidence from last year. I don’t really feel any pressure, I just feel like I want to go out there and do my best in every race.

A week later, with her place in the British team for Belgrade secure, the criminology student at Leeds Beckett University took second place over 400m at the British Indoor Championships in a personal best of 52.42 just behind Olympic 400m hurdler Jessie Knight.

She goes to Belgrade as the strong favourite for 800m gold at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in a huge season with July's World Championships in Eugene, Oregon followed by a home Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Among her rivals will be Uganda's 2019 world champion Halimah Nakaayi, 2019 Pan American Games winner Natoya Goule of Jamaica, and Australian champion Catriona Bisset, but Hodgkinson is relishing the challenge with gold medals more important than records in her book.

“My favourite thing to do is compete at championships, when there’s a bit of pressure and more at stake, she told World Athletics. “I like to go out there and do what I know I can do and come away with medals. That’s the goal.

"I expect more of myself now. I want to be more consistent in Diamond League races – I didn’t actually win one Diamond League, apart from the only one that mattered!

"From my career, I want to get as many medals as I can – I think that’s how you become one of the greatest ever."