Keely Hodgkinson: How Olympic champion broke indoor 800m world record

Hodgkinson has been training in Manchester with coaches Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows since 2019.

Meadows, a former international runner, was in France to watch her protégé beat the 800-meter indoor record set by Slovenia’s Jolanda Ceplak by almost a second almost 24 years ago.

“He actually told me the other day: ‘Honestly, I know I can make it happen,'” Meadows said.

“There were so many criteria we measured against in training that we had no doubt he would do it.

“His biggest fear was to break a world record, but over time he would be disappointed. He said, ‘What if I can’t smile? What if I have the world record and everyone is so excited and I think it’s ridiculous. I could go faster’.”

The date – 19 February 2026 – had long been set in the diary by Meadows and Hodgkinson due to the track at Lievin being quite fast.

“Lievin has set a lot of world records over the years and we thought, ‘you know what, let’s go with the stats,’” Meadows said.

“We’ll probably only have one opportunity this indoor season. So that’s the event we’ve chosen and that’s the date we’ve had in mind for the last three months.”

“I have to say, the time he did it was the bare minimum he was happy with,” Meadows added.

“He definitely would have liked to run faster, and he definitely had half a second, maybe even up to a second, on those legs.”