‘A better version of me’ – Hodgkinson Eyes World Gold after returning from injury Hell

THere was a moment in the summer when Koley Hodgkinson feared that her season was in doors. She had wounded her hamstring again during an eight -hour tour to Windsor Castle to collect her MBE. There were tears and mood swings. Emotional ups and downs. She was the Olympic 800m champion. The golden girl of Great Britain. And it seemed as if 2025 was a depreciation.

“I think I was a bit fiery at the time,” says a smiling Hodgkinson, with an honesty that is just as blistering as running her. “I put my heart and soul into this. I spent my entire life. To do that was absolutely quite challenging.”

It became so bad, she says, that her coaches, Trevor -Schilder and Jenny Meadows, who were gone on the European circuit to help other athletes in their M11 track club, resorted to an unorthodox method to stimulate her mind.

“They would be told that I had unpredictable mood swings. I would come in some days and I would be very happy. On other days it would be, not talking to me.

‘Trevor has brought me one of those Himalayas burnt lamps. It’s as big as my head. He said: “Oh, I have something to you. ‘Because his sister has a Crystal Shop, and I love crystals and spirituality. “

There are numerous skeptics when it comes to the lamps, whether they help create a calming atmosphere and improve the mood. But around the same time, Painter also turned hard science by convincing Nike to stump funds for a full -time physiotherapist. It would turn out to be a game changer.

Hodgkinson’s problems, they discovered, were caused by her back. Suddenly a load of body and mind was lifted. “I have always struggled with a tight back,” says Hodgkinson. “But now I lift a little heavier and run faster, it puts more pressure on it.

“My body is in a good place at the moment. I am a bit heavier. In the gym I have put on a few kilograms since Paris last year. But funny enough it has not delayed me. I think it has made me more powerful.”

It certainly looks like this: 376 days after she won gold in Paris, Hodgkinson returned in August by walking 1min 54.74SEC in a Diamond League event in Silesia, the ninth fastest time in history, following a 1.55 four days later in Lausanne.

“I was so focused on making a starting line throughout the year that once it had finally done, I was exhausted after Silesia,” she says. “Mental, physical, emotional. So I was so happy with how Lausanne went, given the weather and everything we had experienced, to support it with a 1.55.”

Hodgkinson is the overwhelming favorite for the 800m in the World Athletics Championships. It has been quite a turn, given where she was when she injured her hamstring for the second time in May, after she had had similar problems in May and after Paris.

“Getting a MBE was great,” she says. “It was an incredible day. Going down and experiencing that it was so good. But it messed with my back.

“I always think things happen for a reason. I was in a car for eight hours? I should be able to survive. [my body] Die did not, it clearly told me that something was wrong.

“That second injury certainly broke my heart a bit. I was very down after that.

“I wanted to race like an Olympic champion. I wanted to be in the starting line with my new Nike kit in the Olympic color. I had worked so hard to get and announced as an Olympic champion. I waited a whole year to do that. And in June I was not sure if I would make the plane here.

“I was touch and went. But go to Portugal and be in the heat, brought my running. It is a bit of a miracle in a way that things went so well.”

During the bad times that she is recently confronted, Hodgkinson also dealt with her psychologist and her anger and frustration. But while she worked tirelessly to get herself back to fitness, social media trolls would attack her when she posted photos of herself at an event.

“People started doing nothing,” she says. “And if you are in a bad place anyway, negative comments will keep you more. The human brain naturally looks for negativity, and what people think, even if it is so far from reality. I love the block button. That’s my favorite.”

The timers and critics of social media are in the rearview mirror for a long time. “It was quite a journey to come back here, but I wouldn’t change it,” she says. “It was probably one of the best things that could happen to me.

“It’s character structure. It has taught me a lot about myself. I had a lot of time to process everything that happened and I feel like a better version of me.”

Something else has changed since the Olympic Games in Paris: the weight of expectations no longer connects her in the same way. “Nothing can be worse than last year,” she says. “That was so much busy. I have the feeling that I have gone above that now. I have experienced it and I know how to deal with it.

So what does she make it again in the hope of Great Britain on her shoulders in Tokyo? “I have to walk away with the gold and hopefully I will do that,” she says. “But I don’t have a sense of pressure this year. I’m chilling.”