Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson set a new world 800m indoor record time of one minute 54.87 seconds in Lievin, beating the near 24-year-old standard set on the day she was born.
Hodgkinson, who stormed to 800m gold at the Paris 2024 Olympics, shaved nearly a second off the previous best, 1min 55.82secs, achieved by Jolanda Ceplak at the European Championships in Vienna on March 3, 2002.
The 23-year-old was primarily relieved she had backed up her words from earlier in the week, when she confidently told a press conference the record was hers to take.
“Thank God!” she declared in a trackside interview with World Athletics.
“No, that was really fun. I’ve been really looking forward to this for a good few weeks, so thank you for the amazing crowd.
“I wasn’t running alone, I had lots of help over here.”
Hodgkinson opened her season at the UK indoor championships, running 1:56.33 without pacemakers or wavelights to move third on the all–time list, before turning her focus to Thursday night in France.
Speaking trackside at that event in Birmingham, the Atherton athlete mused that she “accidentally ran quite fast” without help.
Thursday night’s feat was no happy accident. All the tools were in place in Lievin, where the wavelights were set at 55.8s at the halfway point and 1:53.80 overall.
Hodgkinson followed designated pacemaker Anna Gryc of Poland through 200m in 26.47s and 55.56s at the 400m mark before striking out solo, clocking 1:25.06 three quarters of the way through.
She clapped her hands after crossing the line, where she accepted congratulations from her fellow competitors before splaying out like a starfish on the track to soak in the rousing appreciation from the crowd.
Hodgkinson was also congratulated by her coaches, Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows, as well as training partner Georgia Hunter-Bell – the Olympic 1,500m bronze and world silver medallist who had clinched her own victory earlier in the evening.
The new world-record holder, still full of energy, then made a beeline for her family, taking a selfie to cement the milestone in memory.
