Keely Hodgkinson is the fastest 800m runner in history. She’s an Olympic champion. She set the world indoor record last month. And on Friday, she lined up for her World Indoor Championships heat in someone else’s shoes.
KLM lost her luggage somewhere between home and Torun, Poland, leaving the 24-year-old without her spikes, her supplements, or basically anything useful for the 48 hours leading up to her opening race. A Polish athlete took pity on her. The borrowed spikes gave her a blister.
She won the heat anyway, clocking 2:00.32 without ever looking troubled.
“There was a very nice Polish girl, and I borrowed her spikes, and they gave me a blister. I just didn’t have any kit. All my supplements and stuff, I didn’t have any of that. So I was like, ‘it needs to turn up now.’ But it did. So it’s all good.”
Her bags arrived the night before the heat, meaning she was reunited with the spikes she wore last month in France when she clocked 1:54.87 — the fastest 800m indoor ever run, by any woman in history. One assumes she was relieved.
The One Medal She Doesn’t Have
For all her success — Olympic gold, European titles, world records — Hodgkinson has never won a World Indoor Championship. Not for lack of talent. Just relentlessly bad luck.
In 2022 she made it to Torun, tore her quad, never started. In 2024, a knee injury wiped out her whole winter. Last year, a hamstring tear struck just before the championships began.
“It’s been a bit unfortunate,” she said, which is perhaps the most British understatement ever uttered by someone who has torn three different muscles at the same competition across three consecutive years.
This weekend, she’s healthy, she’s fit, and she’s got her own shoes back. For anyone who has ever had to return to racing after injury, you’ll know how much that means.
“I want to get gold. I wouldn’t be happy with anything else.”
Three Rounds in Three Days
Even without the luggage drama, Hodgkinson would rather skip straight to Sunday’s final. Championship rounds — heat, semi, final across three days — demand exactly the kind of careful race strategy that doesn’t come naturally to someone built to race flat-out. She doesn’t pretend to enjoy it.
“I just don’t like rounds. I don’t like them at all. That was horrible, to be honest. When you’re so used to training at a certain rhythm, you just have to make sure you get through, conserve energy, and not fall over.”
She is, of course, very good at doing exactly that. British teammate Isabelle Boffey also advanced to the semis. Hodgkinson’s biggest rival on paper is Swiss runner Audrey Werro, who won her own heat in a faster 1:59.91 and is apparently hoping for a gold medal as a birthday present next week. Hodgkinson will have opinions about that.
If you want to put those times into context, our 800m time comparison guide shows just how rare sub-2-minute running is — and how stratospheric 1:54 really is.
Semi-finals are Saturday, the final on Sunday. After three years of injuries, a blister from a stranger’s spikes, and one very stressful airline experience, Hodgkinson is finally in position to win the only major title that’s eluded her. A blister isn’t going to stop her. Apparently, nothing will.
First rule of thumb taught to young inexperienced athletes when traveling, carry your spikes and racing kit with you, as in a backpack. Pretty simple safeguard.