Track icon Keely Hodgkinson has addressed one of her greatest frustrations about life as a pro athlete after Seb Coe made a substantial statement about her demeanour
Olympic star Keely Hodgkinson has spoken out about her frustration with the unrealistic demands placed upon professional athletes. Her remarks come shortly after World Athletics president Seb Coe was left genuinely impressed by just how down-to-earth the Olympic gold medal-winner truly is.
Former Team GB chief Coe, 69, crossed paths with Hodgkinson while she was seeing in her birthday in a random encounter. And the retired track star was overcome by just how “completely normal” she is.
The 800-metre star reinforced that very sentiment as she highlighted the unfair pressure she frequently feels from members of the public. Hodgkinson, who is already said to be worth millions, made her point by noting certain fans appear to expect her to live like a monk away from competition.
“One of my biggest things is [people] thinking we don’t have a life outside of [athletics],” she told fellow athlete Jeremiah Azu on his Time to ZOOM In podcast when asked about the biggest misconception around athletes. “I hate that so much.
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“I think last year when I was injured and we have social media now…I’ll just be carrying on my life, seeing friends, seeing family. Do you think I’m sat at home crying?
“But at the same time, I’m rehabbing every day. I got so stressed during my hamstring injuries last year, I broke out in this crazy rash of just trying to figure out what it was and get back…
“Just because you see this on socials, I’m not a robot, we all have lives outside of this. It’s not the be-all end-all. And it doesn’t mean that if I go out with my friends for dinner that I’m not focused on what I’m doing. Like, what do you want us to do?”
Whatever Hodgkinson has been getting up to appears to have served her extraordinarily well throughout her career so far. She claimed Olympic gold in the 800m at Paris 2024, having set a new world record for the women’s indoor 600m the year before.
Yet while many sporting icons let such achievements go to their heads, that doesn’t seem to be the case for the 24-year-old. At least according to Coe, who was genuinely taken aback by just how down-to-earth Hodgkinson was during their chance encounter.
“What you see with Keely is what you get,” he said. “She is very funny, she’s totally driven, but she puts things in perspective. I was up in Manchester not that long ago and I bumped into her one night going into a restaurant.
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“I was on my way out. I’d sort of done the early shift and she turned up and it was her birthday. It was a couple of weeks… I mean she’d only just broken the indoor world record.
“She was only literally a few days away from destroying the field and winning her world indoor title and she was just out celebrating her birthday. She’s just completely normal, but she is incredibly well talented. She’s got a great coaching team around her.
“I’m probably going to lose whatever fan base I’ve got left in the south of England, but she’s absolutely rooted to the north of England and that for me counts for a lot in life.”