The harm compelled the Olympic 800m champion to withdraw from the Keely Klassic and she’s going to now give attention to getting match for the outside season
Keely Hodgkinson is more likely to miss all the indoor season, resulting from a hamstring harm she picked up forward of the Keely Klassic.
Throughout her last coaching session earlier than the occasion that bears her title, the Olympic 800m champion skilled some soreness in her hamstring.
A scan later revealed that Hodgkinson suffered a grade 3C tear to her tendon on the high of the hamstring, with medical doctors offering a “tough estimate” of three to 6 weeks restoration.
That nearly definitely guidelines her out of the European Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn (March 6-9) and World Indoor Championships in Nanjing (March 21-23). She’s going to go for an extra scan in six weeks time.
The 22-year-old had been aiming to interrupt the world indoor 800m file on Saturday (February 15) in what would have been her first race since securing Olympic gold in Paris.
Keely Hodgkinson (Getty)
“We had been performing some strides on the finish of my coaching session and I simply felt some tightness in my hamstring,” Hodgkinson advised AW. “I pulled again early on the rep and initially thought that it was a little bit little bit of cramp. So I made a decision to get a scan and that exposed a slight tear within the tendon on the high of the hamstring.
“This shouldn’t have an effect on the outside season in any respect. God prepared that no different accidents come my manner! I’m glad about that but it surely’s only a little bit of a disgrace that I’ve missed the Keely Klassic and I gained’t be racing for a very long time.
“Attending to the highest is one factor however now it’s studying about sustaining that place. This winter has been robust. Two months in the past I most likely wasn’t within the form I wished to be in once we introduced this world file.
“Nevertheless, I labored actually onerous and we pulled out a miracle. It’s a disgrace and annoying that we will’t present what we’ve been engaged on but it surely’s okay, I’ll get one other likelihood subsequent time.”
Keely Hodgkinson (Getty)
Her goal in Birmingham was Jolanda Čeplak’s 1:55.82, which was set by the Slovenian athlete on March 3, 2002 – the identical day Hodgkinson was born.
Hodgkinson, who’s the British 800m record-holder each indoors (1:57.18) and outside (1:54.61), had wished to create one other piece of historical past by including that world indoor mark to her CV.
“It’s a file that I’ve been after for a few years now,” she completely advised AW in our February journal. “I’ve been within the form to do it earlier than but it surely simply hasn’t fairly come out, and that’s simply the truth of the game.
“I do really feel prefer it’s mine for the taking, as a result of it was set on the precise date that I used to be born. I’d simply love to have the ability to give it a great go in entrance of a house crowd.”
Again in December, Hodgkinson was topped BBC Sports activities Persona of the Yr, the primary individual from athletics to attain the feat since Mo Farah in 2017. Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows, who prepare Hodgkinson at M11 Monitor Membership, had been additionally named as BBC Sports activities Persona Coaches of the Yr.
Meadows believes that Hodgkinson, based mostly on coaching in Font Romeu and South Africa, was within the type of form to smash the world indoor 800m file in Birmingham.
Jenny Meadows with Trevor Painter and Keely Hodgkinson (Getty)
“We believed that Keely might break the world file,” Meadows advised AW. “Our stats have been proper through the years and we’ve at all times tracked Keely’s development. The final three weeks went rather well and he or she moved ahead with momentum. We even thought she might run beneath 1:55. However I assume while you’re pushing your physique a lot, it will possibly struggle again.
“We’ve been specializing in the positives and, thus far, we’ve been given a really tough estimate of three to 6 weeks restoration. It implies that we don’t should rush something and simply get by way of the following part of coaching, which sadly is a re-build.
“, the day after she gained BBC Sports activities Persona of the Yr, she was again in coaching. Keely had a large need to be in world file form. It does present us that you must belief the method. We all know what it takes for Keely to get in world file form and it does make us really feel actually optimistic shifting ahead.
“Keely has by no means been in this sort of form at this level through the season. The final word objective has at all times been Tokyo [gold] and hopefully she will be able to run some 1:53s outside this 12 months as effectively.”
Georgia Bell (Getty)
Though Hodgkinson’s withdrawal is a blow, quite a lot of British athletes will nonetheless be aiming to interrupt nationwide indoor information in Birmingham.
Georgia Bell, who secured the Olympic 1500m bronze medal in Paris, desires to interrupt Laura Muir’s nationwide indoor mark of three:59.58.
In the meantime, within the girls’s 300m on the Keely Klassic, Lina Nielsen will look to raised Dina Asher-Smith’s British indoor mark of 36.77.
Callum Dodds, who recorded an outright 800m private better of 1:47.79 in Spain final weekend, is focusing on the British indoor 600m file – a mark held by Tom Staines, who ran 75.31 in Albuquerque six years in the past.
Neil Gourley (Getty)
The lads’s 1000m was billed to be a British indoor file try from Jake Wightman however the 2022 world 1500m champion pulled out of the occasion with a knee harm. Nevertheless, Neil Gourley – the 2023 European indoor 1500m silver medallist – is within the line-up and will probably threaten Charlie Grice’s 2:17.20 from New York in 2020.
Jacob Fincham-Dukes, off the again of his 8.18m leap in Albuquerque, is the headline title within the males’s lengthy soar on the Keely Klassic.
British pole vault record-holder and world indoor champion Molly Caudery can even hope to impress on the Utilita Area, having began her 2025 season off with clearances of 4.75m in consecutive meets.
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