Four-time Olympic medallist Seb Coe has shared his true feelings about Team GB superstar Keely Hodgkinson
World Athletics president and Team GB legend Seb Coe says Keely Hodgkinson is the most genuine person he knows. Coe recalled the time he met the 800m phenom out celebrating her birthday.
Hodgkinson has swiftly become the face of British athletics at the age of 24. She won her first Olympic gold in dominant fashion at Paris 2024 and set a women’s world indoor 800m record in February. Her personal best time was achieved at the London Diamond League in 2024, a 1:54.61.
She won her first world indoor title in Torun in March, adding to her 2024 BBC Sports Personality of the Year success and the MBE she was awarded last year for her services to athletics.
Hodgkinson continues to capture the public’s admiration with her down-to-earth persona and fellow Olympic champion Coe couldn’t help but heap endless praise on the Greater Manchester-born track star.
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Coe, who won 1500m gold at the 1980 and 1984 games before masterminding London 2012, appeared on the UNTAPPED podcast and was asked about Hodgkinson. He said: “What I love about Keely is she is probably the most, forget athletics, she’s probably the most authentic person I currently know.
“What you see with Keely is what you get. She is very funny, she’s totally driven, but she puts things in perspective. I was up in Manchester not that long ago and I bumped into her one night going into a restaurant.
“I was on my way out. I’d sort of done the early shift and she turned up and it was her birthday. It was a couple of weeks… I mean she’d only just broken the indoor world record.
“She was only literally a few days away from destroying the field and winning her world indoor title and she was just out celebrating her birthday. She’s just completely normal, but she is incredibly well talented. She’s got a great coaching team around her.
“I’m probably going to lose whatever fan base I’ve got left in the south of England, but she’s absolutely rooted to the north of England and that for me counts for a lot in life.”
Hodgkinson has been dabbling with shorter distances and will begin her 2026 outdoor season at the Rome Diamond League in June. But her coach Jenny Meadows admitted that breaking the longest-standing record in track and field is on the long-term agenda.
Jarmila Kratochvilova’s women’s outdoor 800m world record time of 1:53.28 has stood since July 1983 and Hodgkinson’s best is a 1:54.61. Meadows told Athletics Weekly: “I think we’re just desperate to see that 1:53 first before we try and go down to the 1:53.28.
“Because she has those months now of consistent training this winter, she’s hitting outdoor times indoors, and it just makes me really excited. I think she will be running those 1:53s that she’s so desperate to run.
“Whether it’s 1:53.28, we’ll see, but it was in London in 2024 that she saw 1:54 on the clock for the first time and now she’s really looking forward to that moment when she sees 1:53 on the clock.”
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