The Keel-good factor
Keely celebrates as she lines up to be one of our greatest
SHE is the golden girl who has brought a smile to our faces and the promise of so much more to cheer down the years given she is only 22 years old.
But before she gets started on making more Olympic history, Keely Hodgkinson celebrated her 800m win in Paris with Team Keely – her fan club of family, friends and supporters.
With just one and a half hours’ sleep, the down-to-earth Lancashire lass hopped in a cab for Pigalle, famous for its red-light district and cocktail bars.
“I joined my family at a bar, I’ve no idea where but it was great,” she said. “The atmosphere was absolutely amazing. Everyone was almost drunk as you can imagine.
“I had a little cheeky one. I was tired, but it was good fun. The bar was absolutely rammed, with some people I have not seen for a long time. It was great to have their support.”
VICTORY
Keely was in the bar until 2am with her dad Dean, who earlier wept in the Stade de France stands as he gave her a victory hug, alongside mum Rachel.
Around 40 relatives were in Paris, and Dean had 180 Team Keely T-shirts printed with the motto: “Where we go one, we go all.”
She counted them “one by one” as she did her lap of honour with a crown on her head. Keely has made it clear she never wants to be seen as a Princess. But she is the queen of the track.
Soon she is off to Marbella for “a glass of rosé” on a family holiday, her first since 2019.
With her victory comes a £39,000 bonus paid for the first time to gold medallists. She thinks she will spend it on a Porsche “in beige”, but she needs to
“look at the insurance”.
Keely said: “I have a silver Cartier ring that
I like. But I’d like to go and get the gold one to stack on top. So I think that’s a nice little touch.’’
It is a long way from the start of her career in Atherton, in Greater Manchester.
She told how her dad had to convince her to take part in a cross country event by buying her a pair of shoes if she won. She recalled: “I was really nervous and I didn’t really want to run – and my dad bribed me with a pair of shoes. I do believe if he hadn’t forced me out of my comfort zone that day, I’d have shied away from
something.” She became the first junior woman in history to break the two-minute barrier in the indoor 800m. But she had to recover from an operation to remove a tumour on her ear, leaving her mostly deaf on one side in 2015.
Bounce back she did. She is the first British woman to win Olympic Gold in track and field since Jessica Ennis-Hill at London 2012 – the woman who inspired her at the age of 10.
And now she is set to inspire a new generation of young athletes.
After receiving her medal, she said: “I’ve waited a long time to hear the national anthem. Seb Coe said, ‘that’s been our most popular gold medal so far’. Piece of the Eiffel tower in the bag. It doesn’t get much better than that. It will be kept in a cupboard for the time being.”
One of the world’s fastest athletes confessed: “I’ve still not framed my silver from Tokyo yet.”
For her latest victory, she was cheered on by Manchester United and England footballer Ella Toone, a friend and former teammate at Fred Longworth High School in Tyldesley.
Toone shared a video of her watching the final on TV, waving her hands in the air and sent her a message of congratulations. Now, a series of marketing deals are set to make Keely a multimillionaire. Nike, one of her many suitors, is said to have an ad campaign at the ready. And Keely is now odds on for Sports Personality of the Year.
Her rise to the top has been meteoric – going into 2020, what should have been the Olympic year, she was 167th in the world. Then came that Tokyo silver.
Soon her agent Dale King-Clutterbuck could elevate her to the top of the British sports women’s Rich List.
PR expert Mark Borkowski said: “She has the world at her feet, at such a young age she will become the UK sports poster girl.
“Not only has she a future on the track but she can turn her post-career fame into something really special.
“I expect that every brand will be forming a line which will run the length of the country.”
And Keely still has huge ambitions. “I hope to be a four-time Olympian,” she said yesterday, with an eye on LA 2028, then Brisbane in 2032. “I want to see if we can bring home medals from every single one. That’s a great challenge,” she said. “When you’ve achieved what I achieved, you have to start looking at what is next, how do you keep the motivation going?
“Obviously I’m going to enjoy this moment 100%. But the world of athletics, it just keeps moving.’’
The world record of 1 min 53.28 sec, set by Jarmila Kratochvilova in 1983, is the next target for Keely.
But first, there is the little matter of test-driving that Porsche...
KEELY Hodgkinson’s fantastic race into the Olympic history books will hopefully inspire others to follow in her footsteps.
Out on the town after only a few hours sleep, the 800m champion is deservedly guaranteed a hero’s welcome on her return to Britain.