<\/p>\n
Keely Hodgkinson\u2019s camp moved swiftly to play down concerns after the Olympic 800m champion withdrew from the 400m start line in tears just seconds before she was due to race at the UK Athletics Championships.<\/p>\n
Using the weekend in Birmingham as a speed-work opportunity, Hodgkinson emerged for the women\u2019s 400m final and began the usual pre-race strides in her lane, only to stop, grimace and slowly make her way to the side of the track. After a few seconds of thought, she crouched down and started to cry before she was led away, with the race going ahead in her absence.<\/p>\n She later provided a statement saying: \u201cI wasn\u2019t feeling 100% standing on the start line, so I made the tough decision to step away and not race. I didn\u2019t want to risk anything ahead of this summer.\u201d<\/p>\n Her coaches insisted the withdrawal was precautionary before an attempt at the longstanding 800m world record later this summer. They suggested the problem was muscle tightness, which had emerged at the end of her warm-up just before Sunday\u2019s race.<\/p>\n Hodgkinson has recent experience of serious injury after missing much of the 2025 season because of tearing a hamstring in February that year. She belatedly returned to action in mid-August, but could only win bronze at the world championships<\/a>.<\/p>\n Minutes before her withdrawal, Hodgkinson\u2019s training partner Georgia Hunter Bell had run a championship record 1min 55.93sec to claim the 800m title.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve only just found out,\u201d said Hunter Bell, when asked about Hodgkinson. \u201cI\u2019m not sure what\u2019s up because she was warming up really well. We were warming up together and she was looking amazing. She knows she\u2019s in really good shape.\u201d<\/p>\n Hodgkinson has been open about hoping to break<\/a> Jarmila Kratochvilova\u2019s 43-year-old 800m world record of 1:53.28 this summer. This month she lowered her own national record in her only 800m outing, running 1:54.33 though losing to Audrey Werro<\/a> in Stockholm, and had hoped to sharpen up her speed in Birmingham this weekend.<\/p>\n She had qualified fifth fastest for Sunday\u2019s 400m final after clocking 51.62 a day earlier. In her absence, Amber Anning, the British record holder and a former world indoor champion, claimed gold in a championship record 50.16.<\/p>\n Hodgkinson is next due to race over 800m at the Eugene Diamond League in Oregon on 4 July, before a potential tilt at the world record on home soil at the London Diamond League on 18 July.<\/p>\n With Hodgkinson not contesting her preferred event in Birmingham, Hunter Bell was unchallenged in a dominant front-running display, the world silver medallist leading from gun to tape. Now third in the world this year behind Hodgkinson and the rapidly improving Swiss athlete Werro, she will also compete over 800m in London.<\/p>\n