Winning an Olympic medal, that too, the gold, is the highest honor that any track star could get in their career in terms of individual achievements. Many chase this dream, but only a few of them are able to make it true. Keely Hodgkinson made history a week before the Olympics, breaking her own British record in the London Diamond League, clocking an insane 1:54:61. That made her the sixth-fastest 800m runner ever! But did she achieve all these accolades on her own? The answer is no. 

The 22-year-old has had a big support system behind her, which included not only her parents but also coaches Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows. While fans expect big things from her in the 2025 season, coach Meadows has even loftier goals for the new Olympic champ. She’s confident Keely will continue to dominate the track and bring home more gold. In an interview with Sky Sports News on YouTube, Meadows expressed her candid thoughts about her confidence in the athlete who trains under her wing, stating, “I actually thought no one is going to beat Keely. The only way Keely could lose is if she didn’t keep her composure. But I had 100% faith that Keely can line up on the day; keep that composure.” 

Such kind of confidence shows the amount of trust that Meadows had in her pupil. Even when Hodgkinson was about to run at the pinnacle of track and field, her coach never doubted her skills and was aware of the performances that she could deliver. The 2024 season has come to an end, and the athlete and her coaches are already optimistic about what’s about to come in the future.

“There’s no silvers and bronzes now; we’ve got to be gold all the way forwards. We don’t wanna take in any backward steps. I just hopefully think we can, well Keely can, dominate and we’ve got the world indoor record to go at the next couple of years,” said Meadows. The British athlete and her coaches savored the sweet taste of Olympic victory and were hungry for more.

While they are aiming for more gold medals, they are also keen on the indoor world record in the 800m. In the 2024 season, Hodgkinson was less bothered about even thinking about the indoors as the Paris Olympics were in line. However, as the coveted event has ended and she has become the Olympic champion, there’s much more than she and her coach wanted to add to her stellar track resume. 

There’s a lot to look forward to from the British athlete in the upcoming track and field seasons. However, her medal upgrade at the Stade de France was a performance that has gone down in history to be one of the best feats that the fans of the sport have witnessed.

The moment when Keely Hodgkinson upgraded her silver medal

Paris wasn’t the first Olympic Games for Keely Hodgkinson, as she had competed before in the coveted event when it was hosted in Tokyo in 2021. Back then, she was an up-and-coming athlete with a ton of expectations from a lot of people from her country. The British athlete stood on the podium but not on the top step of it, as she had to settle for a silver medal in the land of the rising sun. Since then, she had her eyes locked on that gleaming gold medal.

Until Paris, Hodgkinson accumulated accolades during the seasonal track meets, notably a silver medal in Eugene and Budapest in 2022 and 2023, respectively. She was ready for the Olympic Games of the 2024 season, and the British athlete delivered what a lot of people were expecting from her. She clinched the gold medal with a time of 1:56.72 and showcased her dominance at the Stade de France. There are a lot of performances that Hodgkinson will be bringing in for her fans in the future, and many are excited for the track star, as her track career backs up her anticipation.