There was a moment earlier in the summer when Keely Hodgkinson feared her season was in tatters. She had injured her hamstring yet again during an an eight-hour round trip to Windsor Castle to collect her MBE. There were tears and mood swings. Emotional ups and downs. She was the Olympic 800m champion. Britain’s golden girl. And it looked like 2025 was a write off.
“I think I was a bit fiery at that time,” laughs Hodgkinson, with an honesty that is every bit as blistering as her running. “I put my heart and soul into this. I’ve spent all my life doing it. And for that to be taken away was definitely quite challenging.”
Things got so bad, she admits that her coaches Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows, who were away on the European circuit helping other athletes in their M11 track club, resorted to an unorthodox method to boost her spirits.
“They would get told that I had unpredictable mood swings at the time,” Hodgkinson tells a small group of journalists in Tokyo. “Some days I’d walk in and I’d be really happy. On other days it’d be like, don’t talk to me.
“Trevor got me one of those Himalayan salt lamps. It is literally as big as my head. He was like: ‘Oh, I’ve got you something.’ Because his sister owns a crystal shop, and I’m really into crystals and spirituality.”
There are plenty of sceptics when it comes to the lamps, and whether they really do help create a calming atmosphere and improve mood. But around the same time, Painter also turned to hard science by persuading Nike to stump up funds for a full-time physiotherapist. It turned out to be a gamechanger.
Hodgkinson’s issues, it turned out, were being caused by her back. Suddenly a load was lifted off body and mind. “I have always struggled with a tight back,” says Hodgkinson. “But now that I’m just lifting a bit heavier and running faster, it just puts more pressure on it.
“My body’s in a good place at the moment. I am a bit heavier. And in the gym, I’ve put on a couple of kilograms since Paris last year. But funnily enough, it hasn’t slowed me down. And I think it’s made me more powerful.”
It certainly looks that way. 376 days after she won gold in Paris, Hodgkinson returned in August by running 1min 54.74sec in a Diamond League event in Silesia, the ninth fastest time in history, before following it up with a 1.55 four days later in Lausanne.
“I was so focused on just making a start line the whole year that once I’d finally done it, I was actually exhausted after Silesia,” she says. “Mentally, physically, emotionally. So I was so happy with how Lausanne went, considering the weather and everything that we had been through, to back it up with a 1.55.”
Hodgkinson is now an overwhelming favourite for the World Athletics Championships. It has been quite some turnaround given where she was after she injured her hamstring for the second time in May, after suffering similar issues in May and after Paris.
“Getting an MBE was amazing,” Hodgkinson says. “It was an incredible day. Going down and experiencing that was so good. But it really messed with my back. I always think things happen for a reason. Me sat in a car for eight hours? I should be able to survive that. When it didn’t it was clearly telling me that something was wrong.
“That second injury definitely broke my heart a little bit. I was very down after that one. I was just gutted. I wanted to race as an Olympic champion. I wanted to be on the start line wearing my new Nike kit in the Olympic colourway. I’d worked so hard to get and be announced as an Olympic champion. I waited a whole year to do that.
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“And in June I was really unsure if I’d make the plane here. I was really touch and go. But going to Portugal, and being in the heat, really brought on my running. It’s a bit of a miracle in a way that it’s gone so well.”
During the bad times Hodgkinson also coped by talking to her psychologist, processing her anger and frustration. But while she worked tirelessly to get herself back to fitness, social media trolls would attack her whenever she posted pictures of herself at an event.
“People were assuming that I was doing nothing,” she says. “And when you’re in a bad place anyway, negative comments stick out to you more. The human brain just naturally looks for negativity, and what people think, even when it’s so far from reality. So I just like the block button, to be honest. That’s my favourite.”
The carpers and critics are long in the rearview mirror. And Hodgkinson believes that what doesn’t kill her will only make her stronger. “It’s been quite a journey to get back here but I wouldn’t change it,” she says. “Going through it was probably one of the best things that could happen to me.
“It’s just really big character building. It’s taught me a lot about myself. I’ve had a lot of time to process everything that happened, and I feel like a better version of me.”
Something else has also changed since Paris too: the weight of expectations no longer ties her down. “Nothing could be worse than last year,” she says. “That was so much pressure. And I feel like I’ve gone above that now: I’ve experienced it, and I know how to deal with it.
So what does she make of carrying Britain’s hopes on her broader shoulders again? “Obviously I have to walk away with the gold and hopefully I will,” she adds. “But I don’t have any feeling of pressure this year, to be honest. I’m chilling.”
