Keely Hodgkinson reveals how freak canal accident ruined world record bid

Keely Hodgkinson has lifted the lid on how plans to chase the 800m world record this summer were ruined by a freak accident that her team has likened to whiplash.

The Olympic champion will run her final race of the season in the Athlos meeting in London on Friday, having returned last week from a hamstring tear sustained at the European Championships in August.

However, Hodgkinson believes the root cause of the injury was actually a fall during a cooldown run in July, when she tripped heavily on a metal grill while jogging along a canal.

The fall was so sudden that the 24-year-old was unable to get her hands down in time and was left with bloody knees and a jarred back. Hodgkinson now suspects her hamstring issue at the Europeans was likely a consequence of the fall.

“In the Europeans I was in the best shape ever, but sometimes it doesn’t always translate,” she said. “When I fell over, that kind of messed me up way more than I thought it did. And I think that’s what’s contributed to my hamstring, because I couldn’t really use my quad for a while.”

The freak accident has parallels with Steve Ovett, who after breaking the world mile record in August 1981, tripped and fell through metal railings four months’ later, badly injuring his knee and severely impacting his season the next year.

Hodgkinson also revealed that she suffered a tear in her hamstring during the European Championships final, having felt a twinge 10 minutes before the race. However, because of her unusual genetics, she was still able to train after the injury.

“My body’s quite literally built different,” she said. “So where everyone has one tendon, mine split, so I have two. We found it last year on an MRI scan after I tore it.

“We’re trying to figure out if it’s a strength or a weakness. So when one of them tore, I still had another one. It meant that I didn’t feel the injury until later on when it got a bit tight. I was like: ‘Oh, something’s not quite right,’ but it didn’t affect me during the race.

“The pro is it means that when one is down, I can still run on the one that works. But maybe it’s slightly weaker than the one that’s attached. But it’s a weird one: you can still run and I haven’t missed any training the last three weeks. I’ve just had to alter my approach.”

Hodgkinson can still look on her 800m season with pride, having broken the indoor world record in February, won the world indoor title in March, and then set a personal best outdoors in June.

“Obviously I would have loved to tick every goal that I wanted to do this year, but I’m 24,” said Hodgkinson.

Asked why she had decided to run at the Ultimate Championships in Budapest and at Athlos, despite having done little speed work, Hodgkinson replied that she wanted to prove to herself she could compete in far from ideal circumstances.

“What if it happened in an Olympic year? I’m not saying it will and, touch wood, it doesn’t. But I know that I can do this, regardless of if stuff goes right or wrong, and I can still perform with the best in the world. That’s given me confidence.”

Hodgkinson is one of the headline acts at the all-female Athlos meeting, which also includes the Paris 2024 200m gold medallist Gabby Thomas and the former world 100m champion Sha’Carri Richardson.

Athlos’ acting president, Kayla Green, said that with the event having a red carpet, multiple celebrities in attendance, and DJ Trauma on the decks, it would feel different to a typical athletics meeting.

“Fans are going to walk away and say the competition and athleticism on the track was second to none, but the experience itself was something that made them really have a great time,” she said. “It will also be epic to watch on TV.”