British 800m star Keely Hodgkinson has opened up on her struggles since winning gold at the Paris Olympics in 2024 and how she has become a different person
Olympic hero Keely Hodgkinson has recently opened up on her struggles since winning gold at the Paris Games in 2024. The 23-year-old became a household name as she raced to victory in the 800m last summer.
Since then, Hodgkinson has grappled with injury woes and endured heartbreak at the World Championships in Tokyo, where she was forced to settle for bronze. The middle-distance star has spoken about a gruelling year on the High Performance podcast.
She has opened up about her battles with anxiety, personal transformation and how adopting a spiritual perspective has assisted her in coping with setbacks both on and off the track, reports Wales Online.
“This last year has been the most insane year of my life, I would say, in every way possible,” the Manchester-born star revealed to Jake Humphrey on the podcast.
“Like, personally, on and off the track. Like, if you would have said to me in like January, ‘This is what’s going to happen this year, and this is how things are going to play out, and this is what’s, like, how you’re going to feel’, I would have been like, ‘That is, we need a movie about this’. So I think I just had a lot of growth.”
READ MORE: Keely Hodgkinson says she’s ‘a different person’ after breaking £55k promiseREAD MORE: Georgia Hunter Bell’s heartwarming gesture as Olympic medallist offers honest advice
Despite her setback at the World Championships, Hodgkinson did conquer a hamstring injury at the beginning of 2025 to deliver a string of remarkable performances at the Diamond League, even clocking her second quickest time to date.
She also claimed the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year accolade in December 2024. However, the rollercoaster of highs and lows forced the young runner to embrace spirituality as a means of navigating the tumultuous journey that comes with being a professional athlete.
“I’ve been on a real journey with spirituality this year,” Hodgkinson said. “Like, I get really into that. I just believe that within the universe, everything is already planned. It’s already made. It’s going to happen. That’s kind of one thing that I tell myself sometimes before races.”
She added: “I’m like, all you need to do is show up. It’s already planned anyway. What’s going to happen is what’s going to happen. I think that really keeps me grounded and keeps me present in that moment. And not to stress too much about what’s going to happen. And you can take that into everything in life.
“Like, if you make a wrong decision, doesn’t matter. The path is already aligned. You’ll find your way back around, you know?”
On how she balances the demands of the track with her social life, she added: “I always make sure that I’m also living life as well. I got to see my friend and her boyfriend perform on the DJ set, I got to go spend loads of time with my family and do all these nice things as well as what I’m doing. And it all worked out.
“I think that’s what’s really important for me. So I think maybe that’s another way of, I’m a different person now. I don’t look at those things as like goals that I want. It’s more just, I just want to enjoy every little thing that comes my way and just have a good time with that and surround myself with great people and experience good things.”
With such triumph comes an unavoidable brush with self-doubt, something even an Olympic champion like Hodgkinson has battled. Yet she revealed she was so unfamiliar with anxiety initially that she didn’t even recognise what it was when it first hit.
“When I was younger, I never used to think anxiety was a thing. I was like, ‘Anxiety, what’s that?’ I don’t understand when people are saying they’ve got anxiety,” she explained. “And then I experienced it, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s actually horrible’.
“I think probably last couple of years, you just get anxious about the, I don’t know, teenage girl growing up, young 20s, like life comes at you, you have relationships, friendships and things like that. And that was the first time I’d ever been anxious. And I was like, this is horrible.”
Describing how profoundly it impacted her, she disclosed: “Couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. It was, especially coming after that 2021, I was quite anxious that winter. I didn’t get much sleep at all. I, and it was horrible. I hated it. I didn’t understand what was happening to me.
“I was saying to my mum, like, ‘Why do I feel like this? I don’t understand’. So once I experienced that, I was like, ‘Okay, this is actually a real thing’. But I like to flip, I think anxiety is quite a negative word.”
The double Olympic champion reveals she has now completely transformed her approach to the condition, essentially rewiring her response so it becomes an advantage rather than a hindrance.
“I just try and flip it into like excitement because your brain doesn’t, it knows the feeling, but it’s your brain telling you what it is,” she explained. “So you get anxious for a race, but I’ll call it excitement because I’m also excited to be out there.
“So I think just little things like that, little habits you can change that can change your mindset completely. You just got to want to be consistent with it.”
