Keely Hodgkinson ends incredible year on a high with New Year's Honours list recognition

The 22-year-old from Atherton capped off a glittering 2024 by winning Sports Personality of the Year in December, and kick-starts 2025 with inclusion on the New Year Honours list for her services to athletics.

Hodgkinson, then 19, collected 800 metres silver at the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics three years ago, but has found her life forever-altered after upgrading at the Stade de France in August.

Jenny Meadows, who alongside husband – and fellow Wiganer – Trevor Painter were named SPOTY coach-of-the-year winners, told the PA news agency: “Whenever anyone said to her prior to winning the gold medal, ‘you’re a role model, my young daughter watches you, etc’, she’s so nice that she doesn’t see herself in that way. But now I think she thinks, ‘OK, now I’ve won an Olympic gold, so I understand that’.

“And she always says, ‘it’s so strange, the difference between silver and gold’. And obviously it was an Olympics, it’s the biggest stage, but I think she’s just owning it, in a very nice, humble way.”

Painter added: “The values are very similar to ours, in that it’s about humility, it’s about hard work (and) it’s about having fun. I feel like since the gold we’ve got the real Keely back, because there was all that pressure and expectation put on (her) at a really young age, and she struggled to deal with it all.

“But she’s come out of that phase now, and now she’s an Olympic champion. She’s just back to this daft girl that we’ve always known. She likes laughing, a joke, and she’s prepared to roll her sleeves up and work hard.”

Hodgkinson’s season ended prematurely after she picked up a minor injury post-Paris.

She plans to mark her return to competition with an attempt at the world indoor 800 metres record in February at her own newly-launched event, the ‘Keely Klassic’, on February 15th in Birmingham.

In September, the reigning world silver medallist will be seeking her first world title when she travels to the world championships in Tokyo.

World Athletics president Lord Coe last month declared “real deal” Hodgkinson had already reached the echelon of British greats.

Her triumph in 1:56.72 made her just the third British woman to claim the Olympic 800 metres title after Ann Packer – who was also made MBE – in 1964 and Dame Kelly Holmes in 2004.

Great Britain’s only athletics gold in Paris was the ultimate payoff for an athlete who last winter had bounced back from an injury that had forced her to lose 10 precious weeks of training.

Hodgkinson fought through illness to defend her title at the European championships in April, then lowered her own British 800 metres record with a statement 1:54:61 at the London Diamond League in July – making her the sixth-fastest woman in history at her signature distance.