Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson has faced stiff competition in the years since her gold medal win in Paris
British athletics sensation Keely Hodgkinson labelled team-mate and training partner Georgia Hunter Bell a “b***h” in a light-hearted comment when the pair joked about their close encounter at the 2025 World Athletics Championships.
Hodgkinson won her first Olympic gold in Paris in 2024, having claimed silver in the previous games in Tokyo. She was back in Japan for the 2025 Worlds, but there was no Team GB gold on that occasion with Hunter Bell second and Hodgkinson third, both trailing champion Lilian Odira.
Odira triumphed in 1.54:62, just a hundredth of a second off the British record set by Hodgkinson the previous year. It was a sprint for the line for second place, and Hunter Bell edged out her friend and fellow athlete by the smallest of margins.
Hodgkinson and Hunter Bell reflected on the battle in an interview with The Times, with the former laughing before whispering ‘b***h’ under her breath. Both have taken their challenges in good spirits, with Hodgkinson admitting she was feeling the burn towards the end of the world final.
“But I was dead,” she added. “My legs were done for. That is the closest I’ve come to falling over. It’s just one of those things.”
Hunter Bell and Hodgkinson concurred that, if the roles had been reversed, the Olympic champ would likely not have taken it easy on her friend. “It’s racing. When we step on the start line we all want to win,” Hunter Bell said.
Despite the rivalry, the pair remain close away from competition. “We’ve become friends before we’ve become competitors, so maybe that’s what is different about us. Why it works,” Hodgkinson said.
Since that close call, the Olympic champion has made a flying start to 2026. The Manchester athlete set a new world indoor record over 800m in February, shaving nearly a second off a record which had stood since the day of her birth in 2002.
Just a month following that record-breaking achievement, she delivered the second-quickest indoor time in history to secure gold at the World Indoor Championships in Poland. The 24-year-old was untouchable, finishing more than a second ahead of Switzerland’s Audrey Werro while Team USA’s Addy Wiley rounded out the podium.
Hodgkinson’s sights are now set on the outdoor world record. She ranks as the sixth-swiftest woman ever over her favoured distance – as well as the fastest Brit – though she needs to find more than a second to surpass Jarmila Kratochvilova’s long-standing world record mark.
“I’m not afraid to put my goals out there,” Hodgkinson said after winning Sports Personality of the Year in 2024. “I’m pretty close [to the world record], I would like to think. I have seen this year what my body is capable of and I’m excited to push on.
“That world record is something I will always have in the back of my head. But I have so many years to get stronger so I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.
“I trust in Trevor and Jenny (coaches Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows) a lot. I know what shape I’m in before I step on the start line. It all depends if it comes together and that can depend on many things in athletics.”