“I’m not going to be running for a little while,” said Keely Hodgkinson, revealing a hamstring injury that disrupted her 2025 season, forcing her to miss more than half of it. The 23-year-old British star’s journey has been nothing short of remarkable, from winning a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics 800m to clinching gold at Paris last year. Named BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2024, she has medaled at every major championship since, including silvers at the 2022 and 2023 World Championships and golds at the 2022 and 2024 European Championships. Achieving all this at just 23 is astonishing, but lingering hamstring issues have tested her resilience. Perhaps that’s why she said that the gold medal at the World Championship will feel more meaningful than her past Olympic glory

As previously alluded to, this has been a challenging year for Keely. Fresh off her gold-medal triumph at the Paris Olympics, she was on top of the world, but everything came to an abrupt halt in February when she injured her hamstring during an eight-hour round trip to Windsor Castle to receive her MBE. Amid the emotional highs and lows that followed, Britain’s golden girl never imagined her journey would be so suddenly disrupted. “I put my heart and soul into this. I’ve spent all my life doing it. For that to be taken away was definitely quite challenging,” she told the media.

Despite her injuries, she made a triumphant return at the Silesia Diamonds League, running her first 800m of the year and winning the season opener with a stunning 1:54.74.  With a win in the bag, she is now setting her sights on the Tokyo World Championships, aiming for gold. In a chat with the British Athletics, she stated, “I’m very excited to be back in Tokyo. I feel like this is where my career really took off.”  She further added, “I’m excited to experience Tokyo properly, experience the culture, the people. It’s really nice to be back here, and actually, it was very different from the last time. I’m looking forward to that and experiencing that stadium, which is going to be really full. Whatever happens this year in Tokyo, hopefully it’s what I want, but it will just mean more than Paris last year, which is kind of crazy, because that obviously changed my life, and winning the Olympics is what every athlete wants to do.”

It’s worth noting that no British female athlete has ever won a World Championship gold in the 800m until now. Keely Hodgkinson aims to break that streak in Tokyo. However, with recent injuries, concerns are understandable. Speaking to the media, she admitted it’s been incredibly tough to bounce back after tearing both hamstrings.

“I think I was a bit fiery at that time,” said Keely Hodgkinson about her 2025 season

Although Keely Hodgkinson made a winning return, the fear of relapsing on her injury lingered. Her struggles cut so deep that coaches, Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows, while on the European Circuit with other athletes, had to rely on unconventional tactics just to lift her spirits. “They would get told I had unpredictable mood swings. Some days I’d walk in and I’d be really happy. On other days, it’d be like, don’t talk to me.”

She further added, “Trevor got me one of those Himalayan salt lamps. It is as big as my head. He was like: ‘Oh, I’ve got you something.’ Because his sister owns a crystal shop, and I’m into crystals and spirituality.” That seems to have lifted her spirits massively. After her triumph at the Silesia Diamond League, she’s back with a bang, confidently declaring that both her body and mind are now in the right place.

“My body’s in a good place at the moment. I am a bit heavier. In the gym, I’ve put on a couple of kilograms since Paris last year. But funnily enough, it hasn’t slowed me down. I think it’s made me more powerful,” she said.  Three hundred seventy-six days after her golden triumph in Paris, Hodgkinson stormed back onto the track in August, clocking a blistering 1:54.74 at the Silesia Diamond League, good enough to etch her name with the ninth-fastest time in history. With her eyes on the gold, Hodgkinson is really looking to ensure that she becomes the first British woman in history to win a gold medal at the 800m. What do you guys think? Will Keely Hodgkinson win in Tokyo? Let us know your thoughts in comments.