{"id":245661,"date":"2026-05-28T22:55:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T22:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/28\/keely-hodgkinson-hints-at-assault-on-42-year-old-800m-world-record-in-london\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T22:55:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T22:55:33","slug":"keely-hodgkinson-hints-at-assault-on-42-year-old-800m-world-record-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/28\/keely-hodgkinson-hints-at-assault-on-42-year-old-800m-world-record-in-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Keely Hodgkinson hints at assault on 42-year-old 800m world record in London"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Keely Hodgkinson has dangled the intriguing possibility that July\u2019s \u00adLondon Diamond League \u00admeeting could be the day where she takes down Jarmila Kratochvilova\u2019s 42-year-old 800m world record.<\/p>\n

The Olympic champion<\/a> said she would wait until closer to the time before deciding whether to attempt to better the Czech\u2019s time of 1min 53.28sec, the oldest track and field world record still standing.<\/p>\n

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She joked that the meeting could turn into a \u201cbattle of the world records\u201d, with Josh Kerr, Britain\u2019s 1500m 2023 world gold medallist<\/a>, aiming for a world mile record and the pole vaulter Armand Duplantis also competing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to have that happen on home soil,\u201d she said when asked about taking a crack at the 800m world record. \u201cI get really excited about London. There\u2019s just the whole crowd and everything. As a British person it\u2019s just so much fun and it\u2019s definitely the main thing I\u2019m looking forward to this\u00a0year. It might be a battle of the world records and who can get about one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a plan A of what we would like to happen. Obviously, the sport has its own plans sometimes. If I happen to come into shape where I want to go at it sooner or it happens to be later in the season, that could just be how it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Britain\u2019s Josh Kerr will take part in the mile in London in July.<\/span> Photograph: Sports Press Photo\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hodgkinson confirmed she was in prime shape having kicked on in training after breaking the world indoor record in February<\/a> and \u00adwinning the world indoor \u00adchampionships in March<\/a>. \u201cSo far, the preparation has gone very, very well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very happy with where I\u2019m at, I\u2019m building on the indoor season that we\u2019ve had. I\u2019ve been healthy for a year now. I\u2019ve not missed a training session, so I\u2019m in a really, really good place. I\u2019ve been able to put together a speed block that we hope is going to come together with my 800 in a few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old starts her outdoor season next week with a 400m in Rome before travelling to \u00adStockholm on 7 June for her first 800m of the\u00a0season.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe lineup in Rome is crazy,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve really thrown myself in the deep end. But it\u2019s quite good to put myself in a position where on paper, I think I\u2019m going in slowest and against girls that have been doing this event and are world finalists and Olympic medallists. But I\u2019ve always \u00adconsidered myself a 400m-800m type athlete.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve shown all my potential in the 400m and I got a bit of a glimpse of what I could do indoors so I\u2019m really excited to bring that \u00adoutdoors. People over the years are like: \u2018Keely\u2019s got no speed\u2019 but yes I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hodgkinson said she has \u00adidentified some major targets away from \u00adwinning medals. \u201cI was thinking about it the other day: \u2018Wouldn\u2019t it be really cool if I could do a sub-50, a sub-2 and a sub-4 in my career?\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult. But it\u2019s a nice little challenge to have in the background.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keely Hodgkinson has dangled the intriguing possibility that July\u2019s \u00adLondon Diamond League \u00admeeting could be the day where she takes down Jarmila Kratochvilova\u2019s 42-year-old 800m world record. The Olympic champion said she would wait until closer to the time before deciding whether to attempt to better the Czech\u2019s time of 1min 53.28sec, the oldest track […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":245662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6802],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-245661","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-athetics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}