World Athletics head of state Lord Coe is persuaded “real deal” and recently crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year Keely Hodgkinson has actually currently risen to British fantastic condition.
Hodgkinson rose to shock 800 metres silver at the held off Tokyo 2020 Olympics prior to fulfilling assumptions as the preferred to declare her very first Olympic gold in Paris this year.
The 22-year-old has, considering that Tokyo, two times accumulated silver at globe champions, and will certainly aim to go one action better at the 2025 globes following September in Japan.
“She’s there,” claimed Coe, when inquired about Hodgkinson’s condition in the British pantheon.
“She’s there. You don’t win a Europeans and an Olympics and effectively smash a national record that has stood for a long time, and finish number two on the ranking list in the world, without being there.
“I think the question is how long will she be able to maintain that, from being so relatively young in doing that?
“But, yeah, she’s up there. I would be hard pushed to place any female athlete significantly above her in the history of our sport in the last 50 years.”
Hodgkinson ran an individual 800 metres ideal of 1:54.61 at the London Diamond League satisfy in July, still some means off Jarmila Kratochvilova’s globe document 1:53.28.
Asked if the Briton would certainly can going under the Czech professional athlete’s 41-year-old pen, two-time Olympic 1500 metres champ Coe responded: “I’d love to see that for all sorts of reasons, actually.
“I’d love to see it because I think she’s the real deal. She’s already going to finish her career with something I never managed, which is an Olympic title at 800. I tried it twice, so I take my hat off to her.
“Look, a second is a lot in athletics, it’s a huge gap, but I just think she’s got the scope and the ability, and she’s got the coaching structure as well.
“She comes from a very good endurance base, and she is what I would describe as a slightly old-fashioned 800-metre runner, and that may be helpful.
Snapping the silver streak in style!@keelyhodgkinson‘s 800m gold will forever be ICONIC 👑
Vote for your favourite Team GB moment of Paris 2024 now 🗳
— Team GB (@TeamGB) October 20, 2024
“I’m also probably going to get a massive post bag on this, but I think it also helps that she comes from the northern athletics tradition, which does understand the nature of cross country, and real endurance-based athletics.
“So I think she can make that. I think she can bridge that gap, but I don’t kid myself.
“One second, in reality, is a distance. But I think she’s got the scope and the capability, and she’s certainly got the coaching structures.”
Coe fasted to mention that it was somebody from sports, center and long-distance jogger Christopher Chataway, that was crowned the inaugural Sports Personality of the Year victor in 1954.
The present World Athletics primary won it himself in 1979– prior to asserting Olympic gold in Moscow and Los Angeles– and was two times a runner-up, while Sir Mo Farah’s kip down 2017 was the last time somebody from sports took home the reward.
Asked what effect the win may have for Hodgkinson, Coe responded: “I don’t know what the viewing figures are right now but it’s not going to hurt her.
“The fact that there’s conjecture and people are talking about her and (were) talking about the sport in the lead-up can only be a good thing.”
