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Team GB star Keely Hodgkinson has admitted she broke the promise she made to herself before claiming gold at last year's Paris Olympics. The 800m sensation became the first British woman to triumph at that distance since Kelly Holmes two decades earlier, having secured silver in the same event at the postponed 2020 Tokyo Games. The victory marked the pinnacle of the 23-year-old's brief yet extraordinarily successful career to date and helped to catapult her to a new level of fame. Ahead of the Olympics, Hodgkinson revealed during an appearance on The High Performance Podcast that writing her name in the history books wasn't her sole motivation for winning gold, having set her heart on buying a Porsche Cayman for herself if she topped the podium. "I want a new car," she told co-hosts Damian Hughes and Jake Humphrey. "If I get the gold, it's a nice payday, and I'll buy myself a new car. I want a Porsche, the low down sports one, it's a really nice beige colour. It's just hot." When asked whether she would allow herself to buy the car - which retails from £55,000 - if she won a silver medal instead of gold, she responded simply: "No." However, despite Hodgkinson rising to the challenge and becoming an Olympic champion, she has confessed to breaking her own vow to herself, admitting she is now a "different" person who doesn't concentrate on such goals anymore. Returning to the podcast more than a year after her triumph in the French capital and a month after claiming bronze at the World Championships in Tokyo following an injury-plagued season , she revealed: "I did not get the Porsche. I did test-drive one though. "It was so low, it was hurting my 22-year-old knees. I was like 'I can't get in and out of this'. I had it for four days but I was like 'I actually cannot'. It was a beautiful car but I didn't get it in the end. "What have I used for motivation this year?," she asked herself. "To be honest, last year, I enjoyed competing so much, that feeling of being in the best shape of your life, being able to put on a performance and win races. Just being able to do what you worked so hard for, that was literally all my motivation this year. "That was all I wanted to do. I didn't have anything special or anything, I just wanted to be out there, I wanted to be there on the start line, being announced as an Olympic champion and just be dominant in what I know that I'm good at. So that was in my mind, on replay the whole time I was in rehab, trying to get back, on the bike. I was like 'when you get back and you're running really well, it's going to be so good'." After the highs of 2024, Hodgkinson has suffered a largely disappointing year , with a hamstring injury in February followed by further problems which forced her to pull out of Diamond League events in Stockholm and London. After returning to the track following a year-long hiatus and recording the ninth-fastest 800m time in history, however, she has admitted that the experience had changed her, having been able to spend more quality time with her family and friends. "A good thing when you get injured is you have so much more time," she said. "I have not travelled as much, I spent between April and July at home, which I never get to do. With that time, I got to see my family more, I got to see my friends more, I just wanted to enjoy life. "I think sometimes when athletes get injured, it can sometimes go, not to punishment but tunnel vision. I was very much locked into that but I always make sure that I'm also living life as well. I got to see my friend and her boyfriend perform a DJ set, I got to spend loads of time with my family, I got to do all these nice things as well as what I'm doing. "And it all worked out, and that's what's really important to me," Hodgkinson added. "Maybe that's another way that I'm a different person now, I don't look at those things as goals that I want. It's more just, I want to enjoy every little thing that comes my way, and just have a good time with that and surround myself with great people and experience good things."
