‘That was fun’: Keely Hodgkinson smashes world report set on day she was born | Keely Hodgkinson

Britain’s Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson obliterated the world indoor 800m report, which has stood since 2002, by practically a second in a shocking efficiency in Liévin.

Hodgkinson had made no secret that she believed the report of 1min 55.82sec, set by Slovenia’s Jolanda Ceplak on the identical day Hodgkinson was born – 3 March 2002 – was there for the taking after a prep race on the British championships final week.

The 23-year-old proved pretty much as good as her phrase as she smashed a top quality discipline that included Ethiopia’s Olympic silver medallist Tsige Duguma and Switzerland’s European Under-23 champion Audrey Werro, to decrease Ceplak’s mark after working a staggering 1:54.88.

Asked for her response afterwards, a breathless Hodgkinson stated: “Thank God! That was really fun. I’ve been looking forward to this for a good few weeks. I was really excited to come here. I felt like it was going to happen today, it was just a matter of how fast I could go. It was really hard that last lap, but I am super happy. It’s nice to have a world record and to say about something I am the best to ever do it. That’s really exciting. And I’ve been working at it for a long time.

“The last couple of years I have said I have really wanted it. It almost felt a bit weird that it was set on the day I was born, and 24 years later I break it. But I think there’s still more to push.”

For Hodgkinson it was a simply reward for her perseverance. She had initially supposed to interrupt the report in her personal occasion, the Keely Klassic, in Birmingham final February solely to tweak her hamstring on the eve of the race.

She then had extra issues together with her hamstring and again after an eight-hour spherical journey to Windsor Palace to gather an MBE. While she recovered to win a bronze medal on the world championships in Tokyo in September, it was clear that she was not at her greatest.

But she has began the indoor season in excellent type, and having gone via midway in 55.56sec and thru 600m in 1:25.06, she held her type sufficient to interrupt the world indoor report – which World Athletics now name the short-track report – by 0.88sec.

It is one other extraordinary addition to her CV that now contains an Olympic gold and silver, in addition to two silvers and a bronze at world championships. Hodgkinson will now goal one of many few medals she has not received – on the world indoor championships in Torun in Poland subsequent month.