British athlete Keely Hodgkinson won the Women’s 800m at the London Diamond League yesterday, finishing ahead of Femke Bol and Tsige Duguma. But for her, that No. 1 spot was not enough. It was just another day at the office, where she did what was expected of her. The only thing that could have made her day better was achieving what her compatriot Josh Kerr did.

The 24-year-old reflected on her performance at the London Stadium in an interview with Sky Sports and admitted that there were plenty of positives to take away. But she would have preferred to go faster than 1:56.21.

“This to me isn’t pressure, it’s fun,” Hodgkinson said. “I’ve not been here since I won the Olympics in Paris, and I wanted to come and experience that crowd, and that gives me the extra boost… Yeah, I’m a bit disappointed with the time on the clock today. I want it to be a little bit faster, but it’ll come when it’s meant to. I’m not going to force it, and I’m happy to take the win… and there are a lot of things to be positive about today.”

Hodgkinson, the defending Olympic champ, might just have gone even faster had she not suffered the bizarre injury she sustained before the race. She suffered a freak training fall, tripping and smashing both her knees into a metal grate. As a result, she had to settle for her winning time, which was 2.93 seconds shy of Jarmila Kratochvilová’s world record, set in Munich in 1983. London would have been the perfect place for Keeley to break that record. After all, she’d been chasing it for years, just as Josh Kerr had. Unlike Hodgkinson, Kerr succeeded in his pursuit on the night.

Kerr now owns the fastest mile ever recorded. He completed the mile in 3:42.66, eclipsing Hicham El Guerrouj’s 27-year-old world record by 0.47 seconds.

“I nearly lost it there at the end, but I got over the line,” Kerr said after the race. Although, like Hodgkinson, he also admitted he wished he had gone even faster.

For Keely Hodgkinson, getting the win was still a good result. And she was happy to come away with it.

“It was all right. Like, yeah, pace was a bit all over the place, but I’m happy to be back to winning ways. Doesn’t always go perfectly, and that’s okay,” she said.

And maybe a win is perfect enough after all. But it’s understandable why Hodgkinson wanted more. She has previously spoken about her ambition to break the women’s 800m world record, so it’s fair to say the performance fell short of what appeared to be her own expectations. Then again, viewing victory itself as below expectation is the kind of perspective that sits behind an already remarkable collection of 11 major international medals.

Keely Hodgkinson Says Media May Be Overhyping Her World Record Pursuit

Hodgkinson currently holds the women’s World Indoor 800m record with a time of 1:54.87. She has also never hidden her ambition of breaking the outdoor 800m world record. Having made that goal public, it’s only natural that fans, the media, and even Hodgkinson herself have begun viewing her already impressive achievements, such as her victory at the London Diamond League, through the lens of that pursuit.

Just as the interviewer suggested during her post-race interview, perhaps the conversation surrounding Hodgkinson’s pursuit of the outdoor world record has grown bigger than it needs to be. Hodgkinson herself appeared to agree.

“Yeah, probably. I think you say one comment and everyone runs with it,” Hodgkinson said. “It’s something that I’ve been saying for a long time. I think it is capable of, and the women that we have are pushing towards it.

I think it will definitely go sometime soon. But I think most importantly, it is about winning, and we’ve got Europeans coming up. We’ve got a world coming up, and records can be broken. But being a world champion and a European champion, they stick around. So that’s my main priority, and I think with the competition we have, the best times will come.”

Keely Hodgkinson will probably continue carrying that desire to break the outdoor 800m world record into every race she runs. But perhaps that’s exactly the kind of drive she needs to keep chasing gold again and again.