She’s up there – Lord Coe places Keely Hodgkinson among all-time British greats
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World Athletics president Lord Coe is convinced “real deal” and newly crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year Keely Hodgkinson has already ascended to British great status. Hodgkinson surged to surprise 800 metres silver at the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics before meeting expectations as the favourite to claim her first Olympic gold in Paris this year.
The 22-year-old has, since Tokyo, twice collected silver at world championships, and will look to go one step further at the 2025 worlds next September in Japan. “She’s there,” said Coe, when asked about Hodgkinson’s status in the British pantheon.
“She’s there. You don’t win a Europeans and an Olympics and effectively smash a national record that has stood for a long time, and finish number two on the ranking list in the world, without being there. “I think the question is how long will she be able to maintain that, from being so relatively young in doing that?.
“But, yeah, she’s up there. I would be hard pushed to place any female athlete significantly above her in the history of our sport in the last 50 years.”. Hodgkinson ran a personal 800 metres best of 1:54.61 at the London Diamond League meet in July, still some way off Jarmila Kratochvilova’s world record 1:53.28.
I think she’s the real deal. Asked if the Briton would be capable of going under the Czech athlete’s 41-year-old marker, two-time Olympic 1500 metres champion Coe replied: “I’d love to see that for all sorts of reasons, actually. “I’d love to see it because I think she’s the real deal. She’s already going to finish her career with something I never managed, which is an Olympic title at 800. I tried it twice, so I take my hat off to her.
