Hodgkinson Takes 800m Bronze After Injury Season

Keely Hodgkinson took bronze in the 800m at the World Championships in Tokyo on 21 September 2025, after a season broken by injury. She crossed the line in 1:54.91, third in the deepest women's 800m ever run.

The surge that led, the metres that slipped away

Mary Moraa led through 600m. Then Hodgkinson made her usual surge and hit the home straight in front, exactly as she had planned.

With 50m to go, the race turned. Her training partner Georgia Hunter Bell came past first, then Kenya's Lilian Odira flashed home over the final 20m to win in a championship record of 1:54.62. Hodgkinson and Hunter Bell waited for the screen, which showed silver had gone by just 0.01 seconds.

A record race, and a season that nearly wasn't

It was the first time three women had broken 1:55 in one race, and the first time five had broken 1:56. Odira's time ended the oldest mark in the book, a 42-year-old championship record set by Jarmila Kratochvilova in 1983.

The bronze followed a run of near-misses. Hodgkinson took silver at the last two World Championships before winning Olympic gold in Paris in 2024. She came to Tokyo as the favourite despite the injuries.

A 376-day layoff had kept her out, first a knee problem, then two torn hamstrings. Two Diamond League runs in August were her only races before the final; the heats, semi-final and final were her third, fourth and fifth races of the whole year.

"It got away from me once again," she told reporters afterwards. "I wanted gold so I am a bit disappointed." Her time was still the third-fastest of her career, and the bronze her fourth global medal in a row.