Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson made a return to winning ways at the London Diamond League after what she admitted had been “a tough couple of weeks”.
Hodgkinson, 24, had set her sights on breaking the women’s 800m world record – which has stood for 43 years – in London, where on Saturday fellow Briton Josh Kerr ran the fastest mile in history.
That ambition followed a superb indoor campaign during which she captured her first world indoor title and the 24-year women’s indoor 800m world record.
But her outdoor season has not begun as smoothly, with back-to-back second-place finishes at Diamond League events in Stockholm and Eugene – despite improving her British record at the former, and suffering a bad fall in the lead up to the latter.
Prioritising victory on home soil following those experiences, in front of a sellout crowd of 60,000 inside London Stadium, Hodgkinson controlled the race throughout and finished strongly to hold off Dutch athlete Femke Broeders-Bol in a time of one minute 56.21 seconds.
“Mixed emotions – but I think I’m going to take the positives that it’s been a tough couple of weeks, not everything always your way and goes to plan,” Hodgkinson told BBC Sport.
“The only reason I came here today was because I wanted to run in front of a home crowd, so I’m happy to get that out the way, go to the European Championships next and we just build on from here.”
Reflecting on her testing start to the outdoor season, she added: “It’s a life skill you can take. Life is sometimes unfair and doesn’t go the way you want or how you imagined it.
“It’s how you deal with it. I still dream big but for now, I’m just going to stay in the present.”
Kerr, speaking alongside Hodgkinson after breaking Hicham El Guerrouj’s 27-year mile record, said his British team-mate’s ability to handle the pressure of competing around the world and then win in front of her home crowd was “incredible”.
“Even if you’re not happy with today – I don’t know how – to be able to do that at your age and win consistently – we are so lucky to have athletes consistently showing up, and hopefully we can inspire the next generation to do the same,” Kerr said.
