Geraint Hughes is granted unique entry with Olympic 800m Gold medallist Keely Hodgkinson at her coaching base within the Pyrenees
Geraint Hughes is granted unique entry with Olympic 800m Gold medallist Keely Hodgkinson at her coaching base within the Pyrenees
In case you develop into an Olympic champion, you possibly can both sit again and bask within the glory of that one second or you possibly can lay plans to develop into a legend of your sport. It is the latter that 800m Olympic gold medallist Keely Hodgkinson has determined to do.
The work to try this begins within the skinny, rarefied air of the Pyrenees mountains. At round 6,000 toes in a small French mountain village referred to as Font-Romeu, Hodgkinson set to work with different members of her teaching group together with coaches Trevor Painter and his spouse Jenny Meadows, herself an 800m runner of nice reputation, profitable world championship bronze in 2009.
Coaching at altitude, the place the air is thinner and there’s much less oxygen, creates the proper setting for an elite athlete like Hodgkinson to start her arduous winter regime to organize for subsequent season.
As Painter explains, coaching at altitude permits the physique to supply extra purple blood cells naturally to compensate for the shortage of oxygen, so when an athlete returns to a decrease altitude their base health is larger.
It is a good begin for any athlete and a well-trodden path for many elite Olympic athletes.
Miriam Walker-Khan experiences from Paris after Hodgkinson stormed to a shocking girls’s 800m gold
For Hodgkinson, she plans to pack her 2025 season with ambitions that complement these of an Olympic champion.
Rewinding to that wonderful night time in Paris in August, I requested Hodgkinson whether or not she knew she was going to win the gold medal earlier than the race even started. “Mmmm, yeah,” she replied, laughing and smiling with out coming throughout as smug.
She simply knew she may and doubtless would win the race. At 22 years of age, she was in one of the best bodily situation of her younger profession, having set a brand new British 800m report only a matter of weeks earlier than the Olympic ultimate.
Hodgkinson believed in future and that it was her night time, and so it proved to be as she produced probably the most dominant shows on the observe in Paris.
So again to what Hodgkinson is doing within the Pyrenees. It is as a result of she and her coaches imagine the Brit can develop into one of many true greats of observe and area.
Olympic 800m champion Hodgkinson displays on her victory in Paris and says she at all times backed herself to win gold going into the ultimate
At 19, Hodgkinson burst onto the worldwide scene by profitable the 800m silver medal on the Tokyo Olympics. Just about no one outdoors the English athletics scene had heard of her at that second, however those that had knew she was already one thing particular.
Two World Championship silver medals adopted earlier than that golden night in the beginning of August, and gold adjustments all the things.
“It is superb, loopy, the distinction between silver and gold,” Hodgkinson says, explaining being recognised extra commonly and the growing alternatives to do issues away from athletics.
A few of these have are available in style, an business she is obsessed with, whereas she additionally acquired VIP therapy from Manchester United as she was honoured on the pitch at Outdated Trafford in entrance of 75,000 followers.
Hodgkinson, from Atherton simply outdoors Manchester, is a lifelong fan of the membership. Her household, additionally United supporters, proudly watched as she confirmed off her gold medal to the group and acquired a framed shirt together with her Olympic 800m profitable time printed on it – together with the very becoming quantity ‘1’.
Hodgkinson was honoured throughout a Manchester United sport at Outdated Trafford
Meadows is aware of a factor or two in regards to the 800m and predicts that Hodgkinson can dominate the game.
“It could possibly’t be silver and bronze anymore. She will be able to dominate the game and develop into a legend.”
And that begins with the 2025 season, the place Hodgkinson alongside together with her coaches will rigorously select her race schedule for what appears set to be a really busy 12 months.
The European Indoor Championships within the Netherlands and World Indoor Championships in China are each in March, earlier than the spotlight of the out of doors season comes on the World Championships in Japan in September.
There are different ambitions too, within the type of data. However whereas there’s certainty over the goal in competitors, the method to the stopwatch is “when it occurs it occurs”.
Painter and Meadows have such perception in Hodkinson’s expertise that they assume she’s going to be capable of break the 800m indoor and out of doors world data.
The indoor report is maybe the simpler of the 2 to interrupt. The 800m out of doors world report was set in July 1983 and is the oldest world report left on the books in observe and area, with the time of 1:53.28 considered for years as untouchable.
Hodgkinson displays on her gold medal-winning efficiency within the 800m and units the world report as her subsequent goal
Hodgkinson although is clearly getting faster and faster and is doubtlessly nonetheless years from reaching her potential. Her private finest, the sixth quickest 800m of all time, is simply over a second off Jarmila Kratochvilova’s world report, however already there’s a sense that Hodgkinson could be very able to operating sub 1:54s.
Hodgkinson will not be solely the world’s finest 800m runner, however very useful over 400m too, so pace is an attribute in hand.
Regardless of Hodgkinson’s success, the 22-year-old stays right down to earth, approachable and enjoyable. Family and friends are her rock, whereas Painter and Meadows are like a second household. Their daughter Arabella is aware of Hodgkinson solely as “Auntie Keely”.
These two not solely preserve Hodgkinson grounded, however organise her schedule, permitting her house and time away from athletics and a working schedule which focuses her on nothing aside from the coaching regime at hand.
They joke, smile, and snigger, however proceed to work arduous as a unit.
Whereas sat on a rock recovering after a 35-minute ‘warm-up’ run at 6,000 toes not removed from Font-Romeu, Hodgkinson says: “I requested for Sundays off from Trev. He stated develop into Olympic champion and you’ll.”
I requested if he had caught to his phrase, to which she enthusiastically confirmed, whereas gulping for extra air to get better.
A chuckling Painter watching on from a number of yards away, with depraved timing and humour, says: “She has a tough energy and conditioning session now within the gymnasium… and at altitude, you will get pleasure from this!”
With this ambiance, there seems to be little doubt that 2025 will likely be one other 12 months the place Hodgkinson additional enhances her place as one in every of Britain’s present sporting greats.
