Hodgkinson insists she can handle the pressure in Tokyo

By Charlie Bennett in Tokyo

Keely Hodgkinson insists she can handle the pressure of delivering an expected gold medal as she prepares for her World Athletics Championships bow.

The Olympic champion begins her bid to add the world 800m title to her win in Paris last year and the European gold she won in Rome.

Two hamstring injuries threatened to wreck Hodgkinson’s season and she has raced just twice since her Olympic triumph.

But the 23-year-old won both and set tongues wagging by coming within 0.13 seconds of her national record in Silesia by running one minute 54.74 seconds.

It has fuelled talk she could even challenge Jarmila Kratochvílová’s 42-year-old world record of one minute 53.28s– the longest standing in athletics.

“Last year set me up for this kind of pressure and it’s a great position to be in,” she said.

“The final will be so much fun, back in Tokyo where there was no crowd last time.

“It was my first senior championships so I have a lot of memories there and I’m really excited. I was 19, I look back and I look like a baby.

“It (world record) has definitely crossed my mind a few times. If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have said 1.53 is crazy.

“Now I have hit that 1.54-mid, I have seen things in training I know my body can do and I think we can break 1.54. I do think one day it is breakable, to rewrite that record would be insane.”

Hodgkinson goes in the first heat at 11.58am BST, while compatriots Georgia Hunter Bell and Jemma Reekie start soon after.

Hunter Bell is eyeing a medal of her own after dropping down from 1500m, in which she won bronze at the Olympics, to the two-lap distance.

Meanwhile, Reekie says she is seeking redemption on the global stage after missing the Olympic final last summer.

“When you work hard for something and don’t achieve it, it can be quite confusing but I think these things are here to make us stronger,” she said.

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