Keely Hodgkinson offering inspiration to fellow athletes at UK Indoor Championships

This time last year, the 18-year-old Leeds Beckett University student from Wigan was a relative unknown, embarking on the 2021 campaign with hopes and dreams and only an inner belief that everything was coming together at the right time.

But a breakthrough indoor season sparked a remarkable rise that peaked with an Olympic silver medal in Tokyo and shows no signs of slowing down, if last week’s record-breaking feat on the same track she will grace this weekend is anything to go by.

It began in Vienna last January, when she smashed the world under-20 indoor 800m record with a time of 1:59.03 seconds and continued in Torun, Poland in March, when the Leigh Harrier won 800m gold at the European Athletics Indoor Championships, becoming the youngest British winner of a European indoor title for over half a century.

With her name now known, the product of the Leeds Beckett Talent Hub and university head of athletics Andrew Henderson’s star pupil delivered on the biggest stage of all, winning a silver medal in the 800m at the Tokyo Olympics, beating Dame Kelly Holmes’s national record with a time of 1:55.88.

Hodgkinson is only getting faster. Last week she saw off a top-class field at an international meet in Birmingham in a time of 1:57.20, the fastest indoor 800m performance by a woman in 20 years.

She was two seconds faster than the rest of the field.

“I wrote down the aims for this year and one of them was a British indoor record,” said Hodgkinson, who only turns 20 next month.

“I was 100 per cent in shape for this record and I just wanted to go for it and there were some good girls in that race.

“I’ve never run in front of a British crowd this big and it was such a comfortable environment.”

“I really wanted to try and front run. I haven’t done that in such a long time, so I wanted to get confidence with that.

“I did what I knew I had been doing in training and just ran the race.

“I was annoyed because I stumbled a bit on the last corner and I feel like that might have cost me a tenth of a second, but we’ll just correct that next time and hope I can go quicker. But I’m really happy with that race.”

She may go quicker this weekend in Birmingham, but only in the 400m, her sole focus at these British championships.

So who might be ready to emerge from the shadows this weekend and catapult themselves along a path to glory in a crowded 2022 summer that sees a World Athletics Championships, a European Championships and the Commonwealth Games?

From Yorkshire there is a good number of contenders.

European indoor women’s 3000m champion Amy-Eloise Markovc, who is American based but runs for Wakefield Harriers, is the big favourite in the 1,500m. She ran a personal best in Birmingham last weekend.

A strong field has assembled for the men’s 3,000m including by European 5000m record-setter Northallerton’s Marc Scott (Richmond & Zetland) who like Hodgkinson was an Olympic debutant in Tokyo.

In the men’s 200m, the defending champion Andrew Morgan Harrison of Kingston Upon Hull is not entered but of the contenders, look out for North of England champion Joe Ferguson of Leeds City Athletics Club.

In the men’s shot put, Tokyo Olympian Scott Lincoln (City of York) is a huge favourite to secure a sixth indoor title. Lincoln has a two-metre advantage at the top of the shot rankings and has an eye on the championships best of 20.66m given he has thrown further this winter.

Lucy Hadaway (City of York) has been a consistent performer of late and could contend for a medal in the women’s long jump.

The men’s pole vault, for so long the domain of Barnsley’s Rio Olympian Luke Cutts, is still a title held by coach Trevor Fox at the Sheffield and Dearne club with Adam Hague the man looking to defend his title. He currently jointly holds the championship best.

In the men’s heptathon, Harry Maslen (Sam Stanislaus, Ilkley) will look to emulate shot putter Lincoln who is blossoming in his mid-to-late twenties.

At stake is British titles and the significant feather of qualification for the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, from March 18-20.

Not to mention the chance to follow in the spikemarks of Hodgkinson, unless she steals the show again.