How SPOTY favourite Keely Hodgkinson became one of Britain’s best-loved athletes

Keely Hodgkinson was already a world-class athlete long before that sticky August night inside the Stade de France when she streaked clear to claim Olympic glory. And yet it is a mark of the Games’ unique power that even an elite 800m runner can have their life changed by winning that first Olympic title. With gold came more recognition, more opportunities, and more strange encounters in ordinary life.

“I was pottery painting in a little cafe in Sale... that was random,” she says, pondering some of the oddest moments of her post-Paris era. “Some woman came in and was like: ‘Are you the runner?’”

A more glamorous encounter came when she was flown out to Milan Fashion Week in September, courtesy of Armani. “The trip was absolutely amazing,” she beams. “They flew me out and I sat in the front row at the fashion show. We had lots of dinners, I got to meet him, Giorgio Armani … He came over to me and he put his hand on my cheek and called me ‘Bella’, which I thought was really nice. He can’t speak English but he’s quite into his sport. It was just quite funny because he’s just this powerful, small man. He’s a lot older now, he’s 90 years old, but he looks great.

“Going to Milan, meeting Giorgio Armani, sitting in the fashion shows, working with certain brands, it’s been really fun. And I think those opportunities have come from that kind of success.”

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That is the difference between gold and silver. At the Tokyo Olympics three years earlier, Hodgkinson had finished a few strides behind fellow 19-year-old Athing Mu, and it seemed then that their two careers would be permanently entwined, one story not fully told without the other. Mu, an American sensation, would surely be her greatest nemesis and perhaps ultimately her barrier to gold.

And while Mu’s level motivated Hodgkinson to chase constant improvement, dedicating herself to a career she’d stumbled upon by virtue of her astonishing natural athleticism, Mu literally stumbled during Olympic qualifying earlier this year, falling and losing her place on the US team.

Hodgkinson had already elevated herself to favourite status before Paris, but Mu’s absence intensified the spotlight. She still had to deliver on the blue Olympic track against a field that included world champion Mary Moraa and indoor world champion Tsige Duguma, and she did so emphatically, controlling a fast race without burning out, timing the exertion of her adrenaline-filled body to perfection.

And so, four months on, Hodgkinson is the favourite to be named the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year (Spoty). “It’s a great recognition,” she says of being on the six-athlete shortlist, even if she sounds more excited by her coach, Trevor Painter, potentially winning Coach of the Year.

“That would be even better than me winning it, to be honest. I think he deserves it so much. I’m not sure of any other coach this year that has put forward as much as he has, getting three Olympic medals within our training group (Georgia Bell and Lewis Davey won bronze medals in Paris). He just creates such a fun environment for us all that makes us want to keep coming and keep working hard. He’s got a really good work ethic and he believes in all of us. That’s what has helped us achieve so much on the track.”

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Hodgkinson and Painter are taking a break from altitude training in South Africa to fit Spoty into their schedule, attending the ceremony in Salford on Tuesday night. The BBC award has retained a prestigious role in the British sporting landscape, albeit a role that is hard to pin down exactly. Why, for example, are Hodgkinson’s achievements greater than Britain’s other gold medallists in Paris, such as Tom Pidcock, who defended his mountain bike title in the most dramatic style?

Hodgkinson herself has said triathlete Alex Yee would get her vote, while admitting she doesn’t know much about Luke Littler, her closest rival in the public vote according to the bookies. “I don’t really watch darts, I’ll be honest, so I’m not sure in his world what’s the biggest thing to achieve or anything like that. But he seems to have a lot of followers and a lot of fans and a lot of people backing him. I wish him all the best.”

This touches on why she is such a popular winner, beyond only her thrilling dominance on the track. Her admission that she doesn’t know anything about Littler points to an affable frankness. It came out in the way she responded to winning a first Olympic medal in Tokyo aged 19, live on TV, with: “What the f***?!”

It helps, of course, that athletics is the most popular Olympic sport in Britain and decidedly more mainstream than mountain biking or triathlon. Usually, athletics is locked in a perpetual struggle for attention outside of its quadrennial appearance at the Games, with interest low and participation comparable with martial arts and bowls, according to a survey by YouGov. But it comes alive in the public imagination during those two weeks when the Olympic flame is lit, which helps to explain why athletics stars make up double the number of Spoty winners (18) than the next most successful sport, F1 (eight).

Yet in the case of Hodgkinson, she is even more than another gold medallist. It is worth noting that the “personality” element of the Spoty award is just a piece of archaic BBC language, but undoubtedly that is an element of “personality contest” in the public vote, and Hodgkinson is easy to like.

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Her profile has bloomed beyond athletics, crossing into the fashion world, a strategic move which saw her join fashion-sports hybrid agency FORTE a couple of years ago, and it is a mark of her broad appeal that “who” she is wearing is another part of the night. “You’ll see,” she replies secretively. Such is her transcension that we might see and hear more about Hodgkinson over the next couple of years than the sport of athletics.

That is underlined by the way she has passed up the chance to sign up for Michael Johnson’s new Grand Slam Track event, which had been working hard to lure her. Starting next year, the track-only competition (Johnson has eschewed field events in a business decision) will have four meets across the USA and Jamaica and it has recruited most major stars to fully commit. But Hodgkinson is planning only one appearance, as she prioritises the World Championships above all else.

“I’d like to do one of the meets, I haven’t signed up to do all of them,” she says. “I think it’s great what he’s doing, I just don’t feel like it’s for me next year. And I guess we’ll see where the league goes after then.” She can afford to wait and see whether it’s worth pursuing.

With that characteristic self-assurance there is an authenticity that comes out as soon as she speaks, win or lose. And perhaps this gets to the essence of her popularity, why she is favourite to join the great and the good of British sport at Tuesday night’s awards ceremony beyond athletic excellence. She has the air of an ordinary young woman who discovered an extraordinary talent, and she’s running with it.

All her hard work and focus is on returning to Tokyo, the scene of her Olympic silver medal, in September in the best possible shape, to try and win world gold. “I haven’t won a world title yet,” she says. And in that final word, she sums up an elite mentality.