Olympic silver at 19, world silver at 20 and again at 21, and finally Olympic gold at the age of 22.
Keely Hodgkinson won a first global title of her career on Monday night to break off the shackles of being the bridesmaid of middle-distance running and emulate countrywoman Kelly Holmes 20 years after her Olympic gold.
It may have seemed a long time in coming but she is still so young and ran a race with such remarkable maturity despite the expectation of being a banker for gold.
The only athlete that could go with her was the last world champion Mary Moraa but that was until Hodgkinson turned into the home straight. Once the Briton did that, she kicked on and no one could remotely go with her.
Afterwards, she said: “That was absolutely incredible. I’ve worked so hard for this over the year. I can’t believe I’ve finally done it, it felt like a home crowd to me.
“We got to the line first this time. I’m now the Olympic champion for the next four yearsand no one can take that away from me.”
Hodgkinson has been the dominant force of two laps of the track this season, unbeaten at the distance and having lowered her national record during 2024.
Despite all the pressure and expectation, she arrived on track with her arms behind her back, nonchalantly swaying from side to side with a wave of appreciation to the crowd.
KEELY HODGKINSON IS AN OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALLIST 🥇✨
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) August 5, 2024
Nobody else even got close.#BBCOlympics #Paris2024 #Olympics pic.twitter.com/BlD7gxUK8d
She and her coaching team of former rugby league player Trevor Painter and his wife Jenny Meadows, a former 800m runner, had long plotted Olympic gold.
In a training group renamed M11 when Trev and Jen’s no longer seemed serious enough, it took them to winter training in South Africa and races from Europe to the States in the build-up to Paris.
There was no Athing Mu here, previously the formidable 800m runner, and Hodgkinson had bemoaned her absence wanting to beat the world’s best. But Mu would have struggled to match her, such has been the Briton’s form this year.
She allowed others to go to the front originally but she quickly moved to the head of the field to stay out of the way of the jostling elbows and loose spikes.
Her rivals shadowed her every move but, none bar Moraa, could do so. When the kick came, not even the great Kenyan had an answer.
Hodgkinson had talked about the world record being possible at some point in the future. The time was nowhere near the 1983 mark of Jarmila Kratochvilova but it feels like that may yet come in time.
And it proved a promising medal start for Team GB inside the Stade de France. Hodgkinson has predicted a golden Games for the British athletics team here.
That seems unlikely to come in the 200m, but that felt like a potential changing of the guard earlier in the night. Daryll Neita may be able to lay claim to being Britain’s best female sprinter, for so long a tag belonging to Dina Asher-Smith.
Asher-Smith had been bemused to miss the 100m final following a semi-final time of 11.10 seconds while Neita finished fourth in the final.
And Neita looked the more composed in the 200m semi-finals with a time of 22.34. That said, Neita was not, unlike Asher-Smith, up against Gabby Thomas, who could hardly be a bigger banker for good so much has she dominated the distance this year.
Mondo Duplantis broke his own world record in the pole vault to only accentuate the gap between him and the rest of the world.
He was the only man past the six-metre mark in the final and then promptly cleared an Olympic record of 6.10m, before attempting to surpass his own world record of 6.24m.
He failed in his opening two attempts but cleared 6.25m in the last action from the track, sparking celebrations with family, friends and his fellow competitors.
