Hodgkinson makes her mark
Olympic champion smashes world record in women's short track 800 with 1:54.87 clocking
Keely Hodgkinson of Great Britain is a woman of her word.
A day after stating that the world record in the women’s short track 800 meters was hers for the taking, she grabbed it with both hands in the Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais Trophee EDF in Lievin, France, on Thursday with a 1:54.87 clocking.
The time smashed the world record of 1:55.82 that had been set by Slovenia’s Jolanda Ceplak when she finished three hundredths of a second in front of Stephanie Graf of Austria in the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Vienna in March of 2002.
Coincidentally, that race was run on the day the soon-to-be 24-year-old Hodgkinson was born.
“Thank God,” Hodgkinson said when she was asked about the first thing on her mind after setting the record. “That was really fun. I’ve been really looking forward to this for all a good few weeks. So thank you for the amazing crowd. I could hear you all the way around and that was a lot of fun. Thank you.”
When the interviewer stated that she “was not running alone today”, she replied “No, I had lots of help from in here.”
Hodgkinson’s record performance came five days after she had opened her indoor season with a 1:56.33 clocking in a qualifying heat of the United Kingdom championships in Birmingham, England.
That time, which had come without the aid of a pacesetter, had bettered her short track national record of 1:57.18 from 2023, moved her to third on the all-time list behind Ceplak and Graf, and let her know she was capable of running significantly faster.
“I’m in really good shape at the moment and I’ve seen in training I am,” Hodgkinson said in a World Athletics post about her performance. “We have some high hopes for the next couple of weeks for the indoors.
“I’ve had my healthiest winter for years. I’m not taking any of it for granted to be honest. It was so frustrating being on the sidelines for such a long time. I’m just happy to be able to do an indoor season and have nothing holding me back.”
Although Hodgkinson had won the 800 at the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024 after three consecutive silver-medal finishes in the global outdoor championships from 2021-23, a hamstring injury kept her from racing indoors last year. And the issues were serious enough that she did not run her first race outdoors until the middle of August.
Although she was impressive in posting winning times of 1:54.74 in the Silesia Kamila Skolimowska Memorial in Chorzow, Poland, on Aug. 16 and 1:55.69 in the Athletissima meet in Lausanne, Switzerland, four days later, she did not look as sharp during the first two rounds of the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September. And she finished third in the final in 1:54.91 in a race that she led heading into the home straightaway before being overtaken by Lilian Odira of Kenya (1:54.62) and fellow Brit — and training partner — Georgia Hunter Bell (1:54.90).
She did run 1:56.53 while finishing well ahead of second-place Hunter Bell in the Athlos NYC meet in New York City in early October, but she was much fresher than Hunter Bell at that point in the season because she had raced so little.
Taking a crack at the world short track record had been on her mind for a couple of years and the announcer who called Thursday’s race on the FloTrack livestream described Hodgkinson’s performance as “simply perfect.”
Running in the final race of the meet and starting in the outside lane of the six-lane, banked 200-meter oval, Hodgkinson was in second place when pacesetter Anna Gryc of Poland came through the first lap in 26.47 seconds and the second in 55.56.
Audrey Werro of Switzerland, who had run a national record of 1:57.27 eight days earlier, was not far behind Hodgkinson after two laps, but she began to lose ground to her after the Brit sped past a slowing Gryc as she headed down the backstretch for the penultimate time.
With 300 meters to go, it was clear that Hodgkinson was headed to victory. And when she came through 600 meters in 1:25.06 it seemed likely that the world record was gone. But by how much would she lower it?
The enormity of Hodgkinson’s effort became visible on her face heading through the final turn, but she did a superb job of maintaining her form in the home straightaway and the appreciative, sold-out crowd erupted after she leaned across the finish line and her time was displayed on the video display boards.
Werro finished second in 1:58.38 and Olympic silver medalist Tsige Duguma of Ethiopia was third in 1:58.83. Nigist Getachew of Ethiopia placed fourth in 1:59.54 and Clara Lieberman of France rounded out the top five finishers with a time of 2:00.61.
“I knew I was capable of breaking the world record,” Hodgkinson said in quotes on the meet website. “Coming here, the question was: how fast can I run? I’m very happy with the result, but I think I can do even better. A time of 1:54 indoors is only the fourth time I’ve run under 1:55, so it’s really amazing. I want to thank all the girls who pushed me. The pacemaker also did a great job. I wasn’t just here to break the record, I absolutely wanted to smash it. I’m really happy to have done it.”