Loughborough College athlete Keely Hodgkinson has won the women’s 800m in Vienna in a European Junior Indoor record time of 2:01.16.
“I was a bit shocked. I knew I was in good shape but I didn’t know whether it would come out or not!” said the 17 year old sport student, who not only broke Kirsty Wade’s 1981 British indoor under-20 record of 2:02.88 but also improved on Anita Hinriksdottir’s European indoor mark for the age group by four tenths of a second.
“It took me so long to knock a second off my time last year and then, in my second race of the season, I go and knock two and a half off. I had no idea what the records were, I didn’t know what the British record was or the European. I was just going to see where I was at and run as quick as I could.”
It is the latest in a string of successes for Keely who took national under 17, under 20 and English Schools Championship titles in 2018 as well as 800m gold in a European under-18 championship record breaking time, followed by a European junior championships 800m bronze in 2019.
Keely now has her eye on the summer and a place at the World Athletics U20 Championships in Nairobi, Kenya in July and the European Championships in Paris the following month.