Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson believes breaking the 800m world record would cement her status among the greatest of all time in her discipline.

OLYMPIC 800 metres champion Keely Hodgkinson believes breaking the oldest world record in athletics would cement her status among the greatest of all time in her discipline.

The 23-year-old British runner, who won gold at the 2024 Paris Games, shaved almost a second off the world indoor record at a meeting in Lievin, France, on Thursday.

Hodgkinson now believes she is the “closest” she has been to lowering an 800m outdoor mark that has stood for over 40 years. Jarmila Kratochvilova of the then-Czechoslovakia posted a time of one minute 53.28 seconds in a July 1983 meet in Munich.

Kratochvilova’s mark has long been shrouded in allegations of drug abuse, all of which she denies, amid reports of state-sponsored doping in ‘Eastern Bloc’ countries.

Hodgkinson was in no doubt about the significance of beating Kratochvilova’s time. “I think the outdoor record would be cemented GOAT (greatest of all time),” she told the BBC.

“It’s stood for a long time and been a long time since anyone’s been able to get near it. I do think it’s possible.”

She acknowledged the difficulty of the challenge, noting it is the oldest record on the track. Hodgkinson said a lot of things have to come together to achieve the feat.

 The Sun Malaysia