We find out more about the training environment that took the British 800m runner to the top of the Olympic podium and discover just how much work goes into a gold medal
Keely Hodgkinson had just had her podium moment when she stopped to talk to the waiting press in the bowels of the Stade de France. A recurring theme of the questions that immediately followed her victory in the women’s 800m Olympic final had been how she was planning to reward herself after the race of her life. There was talk of Louis Vuitton bags, maybe a new car, some jewellery to commemorate the occasion.
The most valuable prize, however, was the one that hung around her neck. There was a decidedly golden glow to the 22-year-old of whom so much was expected in Paris.
To the casual observer, that she rose to meet those expectations was impressive enough, but only those who know her best are aware of just how just how deep she had to dig to turn that Olympic ambition into reality.
With the job done and smiling for the cameras, from the outside it would be easy to think of Hodgkinson’s path towards success as a straight, steadily rising, line. As is so often the case with elite sport, though, the reality is often starkly different. The glittering prizes don’t usually arrive without the need to visit some dark places.
In fact, her training partners and her coaches at the Manchester-based M11 Track Club that is overseen by Trevor Painter and his wife Jenny Meadows, herself once a top-class 800m athlete, are full of admiration for just how much of a hole the British record-holder pulled herself out of at the start of this year to claw her way back to the top.
AW sat down with Meadows, plus M11 members Erin Wallace, Ava Lloyd and Charlie Hobson to get a sense of what life is like as part of a group that is gaining a reputation for producing success. That feeling was further enhanced by the Olympic bronze medals for Team GB that were won by Georgia Bell in the women’s 1500m and Lewis Davey in the men’s 4x400m relay.
Keely Hodgkinson with training partners (Getty)
It’s Hodgkinson who has risen highest from the group, so far, but there have been times when the bubble has well and truly burst along the way. While there is now a lengthy 2024 highlights reel to flick through that includes her winning the Prefontaine Classic, defying illness to win the European title, breaking the British record at the London Diamond League meeting and then seizing the sport’s biggest prize in…
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