Reigning Olympic and European 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson will make her Diamond League 400m debut in the Rome Diamond League in the Stadio Olimpico on 4 June.
Hodgkinson has an outdoor 400m PB of 51.61 which dates back to 2024 but since then, the 24-year-old ran an outright lifetime best of 51.49 in Glasgow in early March on the road to the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Torun.
That performance sealed Hodgkinson’s place on the 4x400m team for the World Athletics Indoor Championships. Less than an hour after winning the 800m title in a championship record of 1:55.30, Hodgkinson blasted a 50.10 anchor leg to give further notice to her 400m prowess.
Not only was Hodgkinson’s 50.10 leg the fastest individual split in the final, her split was also the second fastest recorded in any 4x400m final in World Athletics Indoor Championships history.
Hodgkinson also has an individual championship record in the 400m. She won bronze in a highly competitive 400m final at the 2023 European Athletics U23 Championships in Espoo, beaten only by British teammate Yemi Mary John and Norway’s Henriette Jaeger.
Hodgkinson is due to make her outdoor 800m debut just three days after Rome in the Stockholm Diamond League on 7 June on the road to the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham from 10-16 August where a third successive title beckons.