'Kind of massive bad luck'- Keely Hodgkinson's coach insists training had nothing to do with her injury

Keely Hodgkinson's coach insists training had nothing to do with her injury Image source: Imago

'Kind of massive bad luck'- Keely Hodgkinson's coach insists training had nothing to do with her injury

Abigael Wafula 17:53 - 16.02.2025

Keely Hodgkinson's coach Jenny Meadows has insisted that training did not play any role in the Olympic champion's injury that will affect her indoor season.

Keely Hodgkinson’s coach Jenny Meadows has opened up about the unfortunate injury that locked Keely Hodgkinson out of the Keely Classic.

Meadows explained that Keely Hodgkinson was in the shape of her life and ready to attack the indoor world record but the unfortunate happened and she had to postpone her event.

The women's indoor 800m world record is 1:55.82, set by Jolanda Čeplak of Slovenia in 2002 and Hodgkinson was looking to shatter it at the Keely Classic.

Jenny Meadows revealed that they (Her and Trevor Painter) had nothing to do with the injury since they always ensure to practice caution when administering the training techniques.

She added that once they learnt about the injury, the first thing was to do an analysis and know whether they had anything to do with the injury but from their thorough checking, they concluded that the injury was not as a result of the training.

Keely Hodgkinson and her training mates had a camp of intense training in South Africa before getting back to the UK.

“Keely shape shows that those camps work but the situation is that I think Keely’s situation was kind of massive bad luck, just a freak of nature,” Jenny Meadows said in an interview with Athletics Weekly.

“Trevor and I have already looked at the post-mortem to see if we did anything wrong, tested things too early, did we make any mistakes and we have confidence that we didn’t. It was just a case of carrying on, working hard, following our processes and we know it works.”

Hodgkinson was forced to withdraw from the Keely Classic and Jenny Meadows revealed that it was one of the toughest decisions they had to make.

She explained that they had trained hard with the Keely Classic at the back of their minds and just two days before, things went south.

Meadows noted that Keely Hodgkinson was in her greatest shape and they were sure about her chances of going below 1:55.

“All of us are putting on a brave face, the last 48 hours have been really tough, I think we’ve gone from a high of thinking not only would Keely break the world record but our stats have proven really well over the last few years,” she explained.

“We always track Keely’s progression and the last three weeks it’s gone really well…she has really moved very well with momentum.

“I think potentially she was going to smash it, even go under 1:55 but when you push your body so much, your body fights back.”

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However, they are not going to give up on attacking the world record despite the huge setback. Jenny Meadows revealed that they will focus on the outdoors where hopefully, she will be able to attack the world record.

The women's 800m outdoor world record is 1:53.28, set by Jarmila Kratochvílová of Czechoslovakia in 1983.

Keely Hodgkinson has also yet to win a gold medal at the World Championships and she will be hoping to claim her first of many in Tokyo, Japan.

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