Best of British Hodgkinson's thrilling return to track proves she is our greatest talent

Three months ago Keely Hodgkinson went to Windsor Castle to collect her MBE from Prince William and, unwittingly, nearly derailed her season. The trip from Manchester made her back stiff. Soon afterwards, she tore her right hamstring.

- Sean Ingle

Three months ago Keely Hodgkinson went to Windsor Castle to collect her MBE from Prince William and, unwittingly, nearly derailed her season. The trip from Manchester made her back stiff. Soon afterwards, she tore her right hamstring. "It was four hours in a car one way and four hours back," says Trevor Painter, one of her coaches. "If she does things like that, it does mess her back up a little bit. And unfortunately it was a couple of sessions after that when the problem occurred."

It was Hodgkinson's third such injury in nine months - after those to her left hamstring in August and February - and the setback would have ripped the heart out of most mortals. On Saturday, in Silesia, Hodgkinson proved once again that she was out of the box.

Usually, the advice when returning from injury is to play it safe, shake off the cobwebs and focus on bigger targets ahead. But in her first race in 376 days since winning Olympic 800m gold in Paris the 23-year-old only went and blew the bloody doors off. It was not just that her time of 1min 54.74sec was the fastest in the world this year, by almost two seconds. Or that it was the ninth-quickest in history. It was the way she did it: pedal pressed hard to the metal, refusing to give into doubt or ease up before the line.