jasmine trapnell
sports journalist
After winning the world indoor championship in Torun, Keeley Hodgkinson has her eyes firmly set on breaking track and field’s longest record. Hodgkinson’s ‘world domination’ is on track after he ran the 4x400m less than an hour after setting a winning record and taking gold in the 800m.
Last updated: 23/03/26 1:31pm
Keeley Hodgkinson wins gold in the women’s 800m at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Toruń
Keeley Hodgkinson has it all: world records, an Olympic gold medal, a world gold medal, and multiple gold medals in Europe, but next on her list is breaking the longest-standing world record in track and field.
There is little left for the 24-year-old to achieve on her way to ‘world domination’ and Hodgkinson is more than determined to continue to strive as hard as she can.
The women’s outdoor 800m world record of 1:53.28 was set in Munich in 1983 by Jarmila Kratočvilova of Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic).
Use Chrome Browser for a more accessible video player
Keeley Hodgkinson gives a speech after winning gold in the 800m at the World Athletics Indoor Championships with a new championship record time.
“I’m very happy with how this weekend went,” Hodgkinson said after winning his first world indoor title in a championship-record time. “This whole indoor season has been everything I could have imagined.
“I have been taking classes every week and life is very exciting right now and I am enjoying all the twists and turns, the good times and the lows that come with it.
“I’m so excited to build on this. My word this year was domination. I want global domination and this is a great start.”
“We are having a very exciting summer with the European Championship and everything else.
“For the last few years I’ve said that I could break the world record, but I wouldn’t have said that if I hadn’t had the evidence in training or seen situations that made me think, ‘Oh, I can do it.’
“A lot of things have to come together for that to happen, but there are no deadlines for when or where.”
But the record Hodgkinson is confident he can break is one of the most controversial records in track and field. There are claims that Kratochyvilova was using performance-enhancing drugs as part of a systemic doping program in her home country at the time, but she has always denied this.
Since the start of 2008, only two athletes have come within one second of this record: Kenya’s Pamela Gerimo in 2008 and South Africa’s Caster Semenya in 2018.
Hodgkinson currently ranks sixth on the all-time list with a time of 1:54.61 that won gold at the 2024 Olympics. But the Briton, who has stayed fit this indoor season, is confident he can break the record.
“I have worked very hard this winter, and most importantly, I have continued training without interruption,” she added.
“I was able to do everything and I think it shows in my performance and confidence on the track.
“It’s very rare as an athlete to be in a situation where you don’t have any issues and you don’t have any complaints in the back of your head.
“I can go into a race and be completely focused on the task at hand. You have to take advantage of moments like that and that’s what we did. I’m a very happy girl.”
How to recover from heartbreak and become a role model
As well as Hodgkinson, her training partners Georgia Hunter-Bell and Molly Caudalie also won gold in the event, giving Great Britain three gold medals in 30 minutes.
Georgia Hunter Bell, Molly Caudalie and Keeley Hodgkinson won events just 30 minutes apart from each other at the World Indoor Championships.
Like Hodgkinson, Caudalie has had to battle injuries to reach the top of the podium.
Two years ago, Cordery won his first indoor title, but after not being measured at the Olympics and tearing ligaments in his ankle during warm-ups in Tokyo, that familiar feeling of dread returned when he woke up bitterly cold on Sunday morning.
Molly Caudalie overcame a heartbreak and a cold to reclaim her world indoor title from 2024.
“It was heartbreak after heartbreak,” Caudalie said. “Paris was one thing, but then I was ready to go back to Tokyo and show the world what I could do and prove it to myself, and I didn’t even get that chance. That was the worst thing.”
“So it was really tough coming back from that too. Physically it’s always tough coming back from an injury, your body repairs itself, but mentally it was a lot harder.
“Yesterday morning I woke up and couldn’t believe it. I thought, ‘Oh my god.’
“In Paris I obviously couldn’t clear the bar and in Tokyo I was out of the warm-up and yesterday I was thinking, I didn’t even know if I was going to make it in time.
“I pulled myself together for three hours and decided to give it a try.”
