Keely Hodgkinson: Olympic champion aims for 800m outdoor world record at London Diamond League | Athletics News

Keely Hodgkinson will begin her outdoor season next week and is targeting this year’s Diamond League events to break Jarmila Kratochvilova’s women’s 800m world record from 1983; London hosts the Diamond League meeting in July, where Hodgkinson will be competing

Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson is not ruling out that she could break the world record in the London Diamond League in July.

Hodgkinson set the first world record of her career in February, breaking the 24-year-old indoor 800m mark, set on her birthday, by one minute, 54.87 seconds at Lievin.

The Briton and her coaches are sure she has what it takes to take down nearly 43-year-old Czech athlete Jarmila Kratochvilova to an 800m time of 1 minute, 53.28 seconds, but Hodgkinson will still need tough conditions to pull it all together.

“Obviously I’d like that to happen at home,” said Hodgkinson, speaking with 50 days to go before the Diamond League returns to the capital.

“I’m really happy about London, the whole crowd and everything. I think as a British person competing there it’s really fun, and it’s definitely the main thing I’m looking forward to this year in the calendar.”

Hodgkinson explained that the decision to target Kratochvilova’s record, whenever she does, will be a collective one in consultation with her coaches, Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows.

“I think we have a plan for what we would like to happen, obviously,” he said. “This game has its own plans sometimes, and it’s not something you can quickly plan and think, ‘Yeah, let’s do this.’

“If I ever get to a point where I think I want to go it’s close, or it happens later in the season, that might be the way it happens. I haven’t missed a training session, so I’m in a really good place.”

Hodgkinson will compete again at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham later this year (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Hodgkinson: Advanced Games ‘nonsense’

Some have speculated that Kratochvilova’s success was facilitated by performance-enhancing drugs, something the 75-year-old has consistently denied, and allegations have never been proven.

Earlier this month, the controversial Advanced Games, which allows the use of such substances under, says the organization, strict medical supervision, was shown in Las Vegas.

Despite paying up to $1m (£744,00) for a “world record”, only one participating athlete, Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev, managed to beat the world-class time, doing so in a swimsuit banned from official competition.

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American Fred Kerley won the 100 meters at the Advanced Games in 9.97 seconds, a time that would have placed him last in the final at the Paris Olympics two years ago, where he ran 9.81 for bronze.

In 2017, World Athletics, under the leadership of British Olympic champion Lord Sebastian Coe, president of the organization, established the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), an independent authority responsible for managing integrity threats.

Asked about the importance of clean play, Hodgkinson replied: “I think it’s thanks to the hard work and dedication we’ve put in.

“I think the sport has done a good job over the last few decades of making it a clean sport. I trust the people I compete with, and it’s not a thought in my head that I’m thinking.

“So, we’ll call that thing [the Enhanced Games] nonsense, because it was so.”