Who’s Keely Hodgkinson? All About Workforce GB’s 800m Star

Keely Hodgkinson is, unquestionably, one of many largest stars of Workforce GB at this 12 months’s Paris Olympics. After a sequence of silver medals all through her profession, the breathtakingly quick 800m runner from Manchester lastly took house gold this 12 months.

Here is just a little extra concerning the athlete’s fascinating journey to this point.

Keely Hodgkinson grew up close to Manchester

Hodgkinson was born in 2002 and grew up in Atherton, a small city close to Manchester.

In highschool, she really turned buddies with one other Mancunian athlete: Manchester United’s Ella Toone.

“We’re simply two younger women residing their desires. Ella and I went to highschool collectively,” Hodgkinson informed the Mirror, who met the footballer in highschool. “She was two years older however by some means we ended up getting on rather well. I used to be known as the ‘mini Ella’ so we all the time stored in contact.”

The pair stay buddies and Hodgkinson hopes that someday, she’ll be simply as recognised in Manchester as her buddy is.

“There’s an enormous image of [Ella’s] face at Outdated Trafford,” Hodgkinson informed The Guardian. “It’s large! I despatched it to her the opposite day. It’s superb to look at in a single 12 months how a lot ladies’s soccer has come on.” She added that she’d like to see her personal face plastered up across the metropolis. “That may be good,” she mentioned. “That may be getting the identical recognition, wouldn’t it?”

Adam Fairly

Keely Hodgkinson found operating by probability

Whereas some athletes develop up on the monitor, Hodgkinson did not uncover her love of operating till she was just a little older. In actual fact, she was extra involved with swimming.

“I competed for my faculty in swimming and I believed I used to be actually good,” she informed The Guardian in 2021. “However me and my dad would all the time have the identical argument. He’d inform me that I used to be a greater runner, and I’d get actually offended and be like, ‘Oh so that you suppose I’m a foul swimmer,’ despite the fact that he wasn’t even saying that. I used to be simply cussed. However finally I went all the way down to my native membership and began to gravitate in the direction of athletics.”