“I’d love four major medals this year. I can definitely see myself going for three”
Image: keely.hodgkinson/Instagram)
James Bond super-fan Keely Hodgkinson has warned her athletics rivals the World Indoors is not enough.
The Olympic silver medallist is hot favourite to become the first Briton to win 800 metres gold at the championships, being staged this weekend in Belgrade.
But she sees it as only a launch pad to the main events this summer: the World outdoor champs in Oregon and Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
In Tokyo last summer Hodgkinson announced herself in sensational style by making the Olympic podium as a teenager – after which Aston Martin granted her wish to take Bond’s car for a spin.
“Nobody believes me but I did actually drive it,” she said. “The car that was used in the James Bond film, the DB5. They let me drive it on the roads of Milton Keynes.
“It was very cool, one of my bucket list things as I’m a Bond fan [but] I am really not sure why they let me drive it. I’m not great [at driving].
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“I had a little bump when I was 17 so I’m struggling to get insured. The fast car will have to wait. If I win here I’ll just go for a spa day!”
Win she should given she smashed the British indoor record in Birmingham last month in a time (1:57.20) more than a second quicker than anyone else in the world this year.
She admits becoming world indoor champion is just one item on her list of goals for the year.
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“That is an expectation for me,” said the Atherton-born star. “Hopefully I can go back and tick it off when I get home. I’ve set some goals this year which are pretty big – bigger than last year.”
Hodgkinson ended 2021 as British female athlete of the year, a considerable feat in her first full season as a senior and given world champions Dina Asher-Smith and Katarina Johnson-Thompson are among her team mates.
She has such belief in her physical abilities that she reckons medals in three of the four championships this year is a real possibility.
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Her priority after Belgrade is the Worlds in Oregon in July where she will renew her rivalry with America’s teenage Olympic champion Athing Mu.
Then comes the Commonwealth Games, “I really want to do that, because you don’t know how many times you will get to do a home Games”.
She won’t quite rule out the end-of-season Europeans either but says ‘we’ll see how the body and the mind are coping. Because I think that is a lot.”
The highlight of Friday’s Day One in Belgrade, where shot putter Sophie McKinna captains the GB and NI team, sees Johnson-Thompson defending her pentathlon crown on her return to competition after injury at the Olympics.
Day Two pits shock Olympic 100m champion Marcell Jacobs against the world’s fastest man Christian Coleman, who missed Tokyo due to a ‘whereabouts’ ban.
Hodgkinson, 20, also starts her campaign that day before taking centre stage on Sunday.