Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson says she is ready to begin her outdoor season with a “bang” at the Paris Diamond League.

Hodgkinson, 21, comfortably retained her European indoor title in March during an impressive winter season.

“I have opened up a little later than usual but it’s just to help make sure I’m raring to go,” Hodgkinson said.

“Hopefully I can put on a good show. I’m feeling good, training has been going really well.

“I’m ready to kick off the season and start it with a bang.”

The Leigh athlete was in unstoppable form indoors, improving her own British 800m mark and setting a women’s 600m world record as she began her World Championships preparations.

Her sights are now firmly set on Budapest, where in August she will aim to upgrade her world silver after finishing eight hundredths of a second behind American Athing Mu in Eugene last summer.

“I forget [the 600m world record] even happened this year, it feels so long ago. But it was a great marker to get down,” Hodgkinson said.

“I feel like this year I’ve worked even harder than last year,” she added. “We’re training harder and hopefully, when the time comes and I’m in peak form near the end of the summer, something special can happen.

“Until then, I’ll keep working.”

Hodgkinson’s personal best of one minute 55.88 seconds is the second fastest in the Paris field, behind American Ajee Wilson (1:55.61).

Fellow Briton and 2019 gold medallist Dina Asher-Smith is in action over 200m, one week after the 27-year-old had to pull out before the 100m in Florence after suffering from cramp in the blocks.

But men’s 1500m world champion Jake Wightman has withdrawn from the meet as he continues his recovery from injury.

Among a star-studded line-up, Olympic 1500m champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen will bid to break the men’s two-mile world record.

Meanwhile, 400m hurdles world record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone will test herself over the flat event, with the Olympic and world champion saying she did not yet know what her plans would be for the World Championships.

Fresh from breaking the women’s 1500m record in Florence last Friday, Faith Kipyegon steps up to the 5,000m in Paris, setting up an exciting race with Ethiopia’s Letesenbet Gidey, who holds the records over 5,000m, 10,000m and half-marathon distances.

The men’s 200m event sees the awaited return to action of Olympic 100m champion Lamont Marcell Jacobs, after the Italian was forced to pull out of consecutive Diamond League meets in Rabat and Florence because of a back problem.

Jacobs, whose recent social media exchanges with world 100m champion Fred Kerley have fuelled excitement of a burgeoning rivalry, will come up against American 200m world champion Noah Lyles and Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala in his curtain-raiser.

“I decided to race when I was fully fit,” Jacobs said on Thursday. “I didn’t want to repeat the problems of last year. Obviously I wasn’t happy to miss the first two competitions but I’m glad to be back on track now.”