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Keely Hodgkinson has set her sights on World Championships gold after securing a first Olympic title in the women’s 800 metres final.
She snapped a streak of silvers that began with her Tokyo podium and extended through to the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and back-to-back World Championships as she came home in front of Ethiopia’s Tsige Duguma and Kenya’s Mary Moraa at Stade de France on Monday night.
The 22-year-old was a heavy favourite ahead of the final, with her confidence riding high, and she is now eager to step up her World Championships achievements in Tokyo next year.
She said: “It hasn’t completely sunk in yet, I feel like when I get my medal at the ceremony that will really be an emotional moment for me.
“I’m just over the moon that it all came together, you can work so hard sometimes and it all not be executed as well as you like it to be. I’m so happy I finally got my gold medal.
“Since the last Olympics I think it was always an aim by Paris to try to be in a position to try to upgrade that to gold. After so many silver medals on a global stage in my sport, this really meant the most and there’s no better place to upgrade it than the Olympics.
“I didn’t really know how the race was going to be run or how it was going to play out, you can never really know those things until you’re in the moment but I felt like I was in the best position however it was run and be hard to beat, we’ve worked hard for this and it’s a great moment.
I still don't have a World Championships gold, so there's still plenty more to be done
“I still don’t have a World Championships gold, so there’s still plenty more to be done.”
Asked who was her Olympic inspiration, Hodgkinson had no hesitation in nominating Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, the 2012 Olympic heptathlon winner and a three-times world champion.
She said: “Jess Ennis was a huge inspiration for me back in 2012. I actually left athletics and came back after watching her. I was still so young but I saw her and thought she was incredible and I’d love to try that one day – and the rest is history.”
