British juniors'

CATCHING UP WITH A TRIO OF YOUNG RECORD-BREAKERS WHO STOOD OUT TO MAKE FEBRUARY 1 A DAY TO REMEMBER

- JESSICA WHITTINGTON & EUAN CRUMLEY

FEBRUARY 1, 2020 has quickly become something of a landmark date in the history of British Athletics. It was the day when a number of the nation’s young athletics stars decided to run faster and throw further than ever before.

Jemma Reekie’s 800m exploits in Glasgow grabbed most of the attention but, in Vienna and Loughborough, three of the most promising junior talents were rewriting the under-20 record books.

Keely Hodgkinson finds that a bit of belief goes a long way

LIKE a ‘Super Saturday’ but for the juniors is how Keely Hodgkinson describes the first day of this month as she, together with Tom Keen and Lewis Byng, reached a new level.

Hodgkinson may be aged just 17 but last year’s European under-20 800m bronze medallist speaks and races with a maturity well beyond her years.

Her time of 2:01.16 clocked when winning at the Vienna Indoor Classic is clearly still sinking in but it wasn’t unexpected and, after seeing Keen blast to a big British under-20 record in the 1500m, Hodgkinson was inspired to follow suit.

“I was a bit shocked. I knew I was in good shape but I didn’t know whether it would come out or not!” says Hodgkinson, who broke Kirsty Wade’s British indoor under-20 record of 2:02.88 set in 1981 and also improved Aníta Hinriksdóttir’s European indoor mark for the age group by four-tenths of a second.

“It took me so long to knock a second off my time last year and then, in my second race of the season, I go and knock two-and-a-half off.

“I had no idea what the records were, I didn’t know what the British record was or the European. I was just going to see where I was at and run as quick as I could.”

The fact that Hodgkinson was feeling under the weather in the lead-up to the race also makes her performance even more impressive.