First track medallist for GB is student, 19, who missed funding
BRITAIN’S only track medal so far at Tokyo 2020 arrived yesterday from a teenager who has not qualified for a penny of British Athletics funding.
Keely Hodgkinson claimed a stunning 800m silver after being sponsored by a millionaire who also helped former gold medallist Jessica Ennis-hill.
Barrie Wells, a businessman and philanthropist who also put £2million towards funding 18 athletes at 2012, will now deliver on another promise to Hodgkinson.
Before the Games she wished to drive an Aston Martin from the 1960s James Bond films, and he replied: “If you make the final in Tokyo, we’ll have an Aston Martin for you to drive.”
Hodgkinson, who was 19 in March, has only emerged on the international stage in the past two years, and the pandemic is blamed for her missing out on UK Sport funding ploughed towards athletes.
She clocked 1min 55.88secs to finish behind Athing Mu of the US in Tokyo.
She also set a new national record, beating Dame Kelly Holmes’s mark of 1.56.21 set by the double Olympic champion in 1995.
Hodgkinson told the BBC: “It was so open and I wanted to put it all out there, I’m so happy.
“Kelly Holmes is a legend. I’ve looked up to her and spoken to her in the last couple of days, she’s a lovely person.
“I just have no words. It means so much, and thank you to everyone that has sent messages over the past couple of days.
“If the Olympics had been last year I wouldn’t have been here, but suddenly it’s given me a year to grow and compete with these girls.”
Jemma Reekie came an agonising fourth, despite setting a new personal best of 1.56.90, after being caught by the US’S Raevyn Rogers. Alex Bell also claimed a personal best – 1.55.66 – to come seventh.
Hodgkinson, who is studying criminology at Leeds Beckett University, has gone from virtually unknown at the start to the podium in Tokyo.
In January she ran 1:59.03 in an 800m race in Vienna to become the fastest woman under 20 at the distance indoors.
A month later she became the youngest British European Indoor champion for over 50 years after winning the 800m in Torun, Poland.
Hodgkinson missed funding from British Athletics after it decided last year not to add any more athletes to the World Class Performance Programme.
The teenager had run with good luck messages from her family and friends on her spikes. “They are cool, ain’t they? My friends and family put good luck message, some stuff to do with me,” she said. “I have got Manchester United on there, the Red Devils. A little crown. Stuff like that.”
Dame Kelly said last night that she was “so pleased for” Hodgkinson breaking her record.