Keely Hodgkinson and Georgia Hunter Bell (© Getty Images)
On the track, Keely Hodgkinson and Georgia Hunter Bell are rivals. In training, they’re friends, sparring mates, and – according to their coach Trevor Painter – “quite sassy.” Together, they’ve turned the M11 Track Club into one of the most formidable training environments in middle-distance running.
Painter, who runs the Manchester-based group alongside wife and 2009 world bronze medallist Jenny Meadows, laughs when asked about coaching the duo. “They’re both very different, but also the same in other ways,” he says. “They both have this amazing will to win. I’m quite often getting scolded by them for different reasons.”
That blend of fire and friendship has carried them through a turbulent season leading up to the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25. Hodgkinson, the Olympic 800m champion, has fought back from multiple injuries. “It was quite difficult at times,” Painter says in an exclusive World Athletics video feature. “There’s a lot of soul searching and a lot of tears when it’s not going your way. But that’s athletics.”
In mid-August, when Hodgkinson made her season debut at the Diamond League meeting in Silesia, things finally began to click. “I was hoping she’d be in 1:54 shape by the time she got to the World Championshhips,” says Painter. “But when she won in Silesia (in 1:54.74), I’m like, ‘Oh, you’re in 1:54 shape. Ok, we’ve done it early’.”
She produced another 1:54 clocking in Tokyo, earning the bronze medal just 0.01 behind Hunter Bell as both Brits finished behind surprise winner Lilian Odira of Kenya.
For Hodgkinson, that medal meant more than redemption. “If you’d told me in June that I’d run two 1:54s this season and earn world bronze, I’d have taken it,” she says. “At one point I didn’t think I’d even make it back this season. It just shows how strong I am – and how strong the team around me is.”
Hunter Bell’s route to global podiums has been anything but conventional. A former tech sales executive, she spent seven years juggling full-time work and self-funded training. “It didn’t start with ‘I’m going back to go to the Olympics’,” she says. “It started small – parkruns, a local track race. Then it just progressed. It doesn’t always have to be the same path everyone else takes.”
She’s now an Olympic 1500m bronze medallist and a world silver medallist over 800m, just 0.01 ahead of her training partner. “We’ve always taken the approach that the best thing to do is to go into a race and just have fun,” she says. “You never want to be the best in the group – you need people better than you pulling you forward.”
Painter agrees: “There are lots of moments in the group where you can take inspiration. Everyone’s pushing each other to new limits.”
Two medals. Two extraordinary journeys. And one partnership still rewriting the rules of middle-distance running.
Interview and video production by Marta Gorczyńska for World Athletics
