Keely Hodgkinson Breaks 800m Record
British star Keely Hodgkinson shattered the women's indoor 800m world record, eclipsing a mark that had stood since the day she was born. Analysts are calling her performance "untouchable" and it cements her status as one of track and field's brightest talents.
- The new world record time is 1:54.87, which Hodgkinson ran at a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Liévin, France. She became the first woman in history to run the distance in under 1 minute 55 seconds indoors. - The previous record of 1:55.82 was set by Slovenia's Jolanda Čeplak on March 3, 2002 — the exact day Hodgkinson was born. Čeplak later served a two-year doping ban from 2007-2009. - This performance was a significant improvement on her own British indoor record of 1:56.33, which she had set just days earlier at the UK Indoor Championships without the assistance of pacemakers. - This is the first world record of Hodgkinson's career, adding to a collection of major titles that includes a gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics and a silver medal from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. - She is also a two-time European outdoor champion, a two-time European indoor champion, and has won two silver medals at the outdoor World Championships. - For context, the outdoor women's 800m world record is 1:53.28, a time set by Jarmila Kratochvílová in 1983 which remains the longest-standing individual outdoor world record in athletics. - Next, Hodgkinson is expected to compete at the World Athletics Indoor Championships, which will be held in Poland from March 20-22, 2026.
