Defiant Hodgkinson says home European title would mean as much as Olympic gold

Keely Hodgkinson will seek to prove she is still number one after a "tricky" outdoor season when she comes up against world-class rivals in pursuit of a third consecutive European 800m title in Birmingham.

Olympic champion Hodgkinson, 24, has had much to celebrate in 2026, including breaking the long-standing indoor 800m world record, winning her first world title and improving her British record outdoors.

However, she was forced to settle for second behind Audrey Werro in achieving the latter at the Stockholm Diamond League, after the 22-year-old Swiss ran the fastest time since the outdoor world record was set 43 years ago.

While Werro has gone even faster since, a muscle "twinge" forced Hodgkinson's withdrawal from the 400m final at the British Championships in June and she finished second to world champion Lilian Odira in Eugene, where she competed with her knees heavily bandaged after a nasty fall in training.

Add in the presence of the ever-improving Femke Broeders-Bol - the Dutch two-time world 400m hurdles champion who has chosen to switch events this season - and the women's 800m on Friday night has become the must-watch event of the championships.

"I feel in a good place, obviously there was a tough patch in June and July, but I'm happy, I'm excited to compete and I just think it'll bring out the best of me," Hodgkinson said.

On her previous meeting with Werro, she added: "I think people [are] trying to make me feel like it was a failure and it really wasn't.

"It was a British record, my fastest time ever, and I'm going to remind myself of that because I'm proud of that.

"I had a tricky few weeks but, honestly, I just think it's really good that Audrey has come on really well and Femke is running well. It's going to be a really good race. Let's see what happens."

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Hodgkinson returned to winning ways by beating Broeders-Bol at the London Diamond League last month and has since fine-tuned her preparations in Portugal with her team.

She will hope to once again feed off the energy of a home crowd in Birmingham, and says achieving a gold medal on British soil would be "incredibly special" and "mean just as much to me as winning [Olympic gold] in Paris".

A medal of any colour would be her 12th on the international stage in just six seasons, while gold would represent a fifth European title overall since her first in 2021.

"It's really special. Winning is very important to me this year because it'd be my fifth European title indoors and out, and that is five years of work," says Hodgkinson.

"That is five years turning up to every championships and winning. It's really hard to stay that consistent."

After improving to one minute 53.80 seconds in June, Werro's personal best is more than half a second faster than Hodgkinson's 1:54.33, while Broeders-Bol clocked 1:55.60 behind the Swiss athlete's second sub-1:54 clocking in Paris.

Hodgkinson does, however, have superior championship experience compared to Werro, who clinched her first senior international medal by taking world indoor silver behind the Briton in March.

Asked how much she has spoken with coaches Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows about how her opponents might try to beat her, Hodgkinson said: "We've spoken about it a little bit.

"Ultimately I'll just focus on what I can do best and control my race.

"I don't know what anyone else is going to do, but I think it is going to be the race of the championship. It's going to be really fun."