Track queen Hodgkinson races towards another prize

Lawrence Ostlere on why the 800m Olympic champion is favourite to win the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year

- Lawrence Ostlere

Keely Hodgkinson was already a world-class athlete long before that sticky August night inside the Stade de France when she streaked clear to claim Olympic glory. And yet it is a mark of the Games' unique power that even an elite 800m runner can have their life changed by winning that first Olympic title. With gold came more recognition, more opportunities, and more strange encounters in ordinary life.

“I was pottery painting in a little cafe in Sale... that was random,” she says, pondering some of the oddest moments of her postParis era. “Some woman came in and was like: ‘Are you the runner?’”

A more glamorous encounter came when she was flown out to Milan Fashion Week in September, courtesy of Armani. “The trip was absolutely amazing,” she beams. “They flew me out and I sat in the front row at the fashion show. We had lots of dinners, I got to meet him, Giorgio Armani … He came over to me and he put his hand on my cheek and called me ‘Bella’, which I thought was really nice. He can’t speak English but he’s quite into his sport. It was just quite funny because he’s just this powerful, small man. He’s a lot older now, he’s 90 years old, but he looks great.

“Going to Milan, meeting Giorgio Armani, sitting in the fashion shows, working with certain brands, it’s been really fun. And I think those opportunities have come from that kind of success.”

That is the difference between gold and silver. At the Tokyo Olympics three years earlier, Hodgkinson had finished a few strides behind fellow 19-year-old Athing Mu, and it seemed then that their two careers would be permanently entwined, one story not fully told without the other. Mu, an American sensation, would surely be her greatest nemesis and perhaps ultimately her barrier to gold.