British 800m star Keely Hodgkinson has opened up on her struggles since profitable gold on the Paris Olympics in 2024 and the way she has turn into a distinct particular person
Olympic hero Keely Hodgkinson has just lately opened up on her struggles since profitable gold at the Paris Video games in 2024. The 23-year-old grew to become a family identify as she raced to victory within the 800m final summer time.
Since then, Hodgkinson has grappled with harm woes and endured heartbreak at the World Championships in Tokyo, the place she was pressured to accept bronze. The center-distance star has spoken a few gruelling yr on the Excessive Efficiency podcast.
She has opened up about her battles with nervousness, private transformation and the way adopting a religious perspective has assisted her in dealing with setbacks each on and off the monitor, studies Wales On-line.
“This final yr has been probably the most insane yr of my life, I might say, in each approach potential,” the Manchester-born star revealed to Jake Humphrey on the podcast.
“Like, personally, on and off the monitor. Like, in the event you would have mentioned to me in like January, ‘That is what is going on to occur this yr, and that is how issues are going to play out, and that is what’s, like, how you are going to really feel’, I might have been like, ‘That’s, we’d like a film about this’. So I feel I simply had a number of progress.”
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Regardless of her setback on the World Championships, Hodgkinson did conquer a hamstring harm in the beginning of 2025 to ship a string of exceptional performances on the Diamond League, even clocking her second quickest time to this point.
She additionally claimed the BBC’s Sports activities Character of the 12 months accolade in December 2024. Nevertheless, the rollercoaster of highs and lows pressured the younger runner to embrace spirituality as a way of navigating the tumultuous journey that comes with being an expert athlete.
“I have been on an actual journey with spirituality this yr,” Hodgkinson mentioned. “Like, I get actually into that. I simply imagine that inside the universe, every part is already deliberate. It is already made. It’ll occur. That is form of one factor that I inform myself generally earlier than races.”
She added: “I am like, all it’s essential do is present up. It is already deliberate anyway. What is going on to occur is what is going on to occur. I feel that basically retains me grounded and retains me current in that second. And to not stress an excessive amount of about what is going on to occur. And you’ll take that into every part in life.
“Like, in the event you make a incorrect resolution, would not matter. The trail is already aligned. You may discover your approach again round, you realize?”
On how she balances the calls for of the monitor along with her social life, she added: “I at all times ensure that I am additionally dwelling life as effectively. I obtained to see my buddy and her boyfriend carry out on the DJ set, I obtained to go spend a great deal of time with my household and do all these good issues in addition to what I am doing. And all of it labored out.
“I feel that is what’s actually necessary for me. So I feel perhaps that is one other approach of, I am a distinct particular person now. I do not take a look at these issues as like objectives that I would like. It is extra simply, I simply wish to take pleasure in each little factor that comes my approach and simply have an excellent time with that and encompass myself with nice individuals and expertise good issues.”
With such triumph comes an unavoidable brush with self-doubt, one thing even an Olympic champion like Hodgkinson has battled. But she revealed she was so unfamiliar with nervousness initially that she did not even recognise what it was when it first hit.
“After I was youthful, I by no means used to assume nervousness was a factor. I used to be like, ‘Nervousness, what’s that?’ I do not perceive when individuals are saying they have nervousness,” she defined. “After which I skilled it, and I used to be like, ‘Oh, that is truly horrible’.
“I feel most likely final couple of years, you simply get anxious concerning the, I do not know, teenage woman rising up, younger 20s, like life comes at you, you’ve gotten relationships, friendships and issues like that. And that was the primary time I would ever been anxious. And I used to be like, that is horrible.”
Describing how profoundly it impacted her, she disclosed: “Could not eat, I could not sleep. It was, particularly coming after that 2021, I used to be fairly anxious that winter. I did not get a lot sleep in any respect. I, and it was horrible. I hated it. I did not perceive what was occurring to me.
“I used to be saying to my mum, like, ‘Why do I really feel like this? I do not perceive’. So as soon as I skilled that, I used to be like, ‘Okay, that is truly an actual factor’. However I wish to flip, I feel nervousness is kind of a detrimental phrase.”
The double Olympic champion reveals she has now fully remodeled her strategy to the situation, basically rewiring her response so it turns into a bonus slightly than a hindrance.
“I simply try to flip it into like pleasure as a result of your mind would not, it is aware of the sensation, but it surely’s your mind telling you what it’s,” she defined. “So that you get anxious for a race, however I am going to name it pleasure as a result of I am additionally excited to be on the market.
“So I feel simply little issues like that, little habits you’ll be able to change that may change your mindset fully. You simply obtained to wish to be in step with it.”