A Review of Keely Hodgkinson’s Year as a Sports Personality Contender

Keely Hodgkinson stands as one of six nominees for the 2024 BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. BBC Sport presents a photographic retrospective of the runner’s accomplishments throughout the year. In June, Hodgkinson successfully defended her European 800m title, despite experiencing illness. Although this condition may have reduced her expected winning margin – given her personal best and season’s best times were over three seconds quicker than any other competitor in the final – she secured victory over Slovakia’s silver medallist, Gabriela Gajanova, by a mere 0.14 seconds. Just days prior to the Olympic Games, Hodgkinson established a new national 800m record, clocking one minute 54.61 seconds at the London Diamond League. Following her performance, she stated, “I’m feeling really good and confident.” The date 5 August, 2024, marked the culmination of Hodgkinson’s pursuit of a global title. She delivered a dominant performance in the Olympic 800m final in Paris, claiming the gold medal with a time of one minute 56.72 seconds. This triumph represented Great Britain’s first Olympic track title since Mo Farah achieved the 5,000m and 10,000m double at Rio 2016. Furthermore, she became only the tenth British woman to secure an athletics gold medal at a Games. At the Stade de France, Ethiopia’s Tsige Duguma earned the silver medal (1:57.15), while world champion Mary Moraa finished third (1:57.42). Hodgkinson’s victory made her the third British woman to win the Olympic 800m title, and the first since Kelly Holmes’ win in Athens two decades ago. Sandi Toksvig is joined by Gyles Brandreth, Lulu, Emmanuel Sonubi and Alan Davies Grab the mic for Queen, Taylor Swift, Bon Jovi, Katy Perry and more… Ben Fogle and Kate Humble are back for the festivities at Longleat Safari Park From micro plastics in our air, soil, and waterways, to the extent of food waste at this time of year © 2024 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.