‘I Thought I Was Going to Fall Over’ - Keely Hodgkinson on How She Nearly Missed Paris Olympics Gold

Keely Hodgkinson ran a dominant race during the 800m final at the Paris 2024 Olympics but she admits the last stretch left her feeling like she could not finish.

Hodgkinson went into the final as hot favourite to win gold, having recorded the fastest time in the semi-final, and when the gun went off, she decided against going ahead, leaving others to take centre stage as she waited for her moment.

However, when the bell was run signaling the final lap, she took off, and commanded the race, winning by some distance in a time of 1:56.72 as Ethiopian Tsige Duguma finished second in 1:57.15.

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While it might have looked easy for those watching, the British runner says the final 50 metres of the race were so tough that she felt she could even fall before reaching the finish line.

“If you watch like my last 10 metres from Tokyo, the lactic really hit me like the last 50 metres,” Hodgkinson revealed on the High Performance podcast.

“I thought I was going to fall over and I just remember there being [things like] bricks and trying to force my leg in front of the others and fighting and I am not just used to that.”

Hodgkinson then went into the mechanics that make the 800m race tough, revealing that runners begin to feel the full force of the distance in the final 100m and only those tough physically and mentally hack it.

“The last 100m for me is where the 800m starts like when it hurts the most,” she added. “It is when everyone is struggling and is like who has got what left and who can keep it together.”

“When you see people actually fall over, over the line, is [because] they have got that lactic, they have given everything and the body physically cannot move anymore. It is kind of insane,” she further said.

Hodgkinson has mastered the art of the 800m race as since recovering from an injury that disrupted her 2025 campaign, she has started 2026 like a house on fire, lowering the British Indoor record before breaking the world record when she ran 1:54.87 in Lievin, France last month.

Last weekend, the 24-year-old won gold over the distance at the World Indoor Championships in Torun, Poland, setting a new championship record of 1:55.30.