Keely Hodgkinson shows record form on her flying visit

Before moving to its swanky Utilita Arena home following the Birmingham venue’s multi-million pound refurbishment just over a decade ago, the UK Indoor Athletics Championships had long been held on the outskirts of Sheffield.

The Steel City’s English Institute of Sport proudly – and justifiably – trumpets itself as “one of the country’s best sporting, leisure and fitness centres”. It provides a training lifeblood for amateurs and professionals alike. But, as a stage for elite competition, it felt like a CD player attempting to cling on in a digital music era.

Each winter, temporary stands would be erected around the indoor track to house fans eager to glimpse athletics’ biggest stars. More often than not, Britain’s best would stay away. By the end of the Sheffield era of national championship athletics, selection policies were treated with something between frivolity and disdain. Exemptions from competing were handed out like confetti at a wedding, and if Britain’s athletes could avoid a February trip to Sheffield’s industrial quarter they would. Sightings of world-class performers became increasingly rare.

Times change, athletics creeps ever further out of the limelight, and the governing body needs its top names to show up. So, if an athlete wants to make the British team for next month’s World Indoor Championships, attendance in Birmingham is mandatory this weekend, without an official sick note.

Before smashing her own British indoor record in the 800m heat yesterday, it had been six years since Keely Hodgkinson last contested her primary event at these championships – a period in which she has blossomed from promising teenage talent to the best in the world. Having the country’s most recognisable athletics figure, a generational talent who has transcended the sport, competing in the discipline she has taken to new heights was quite the coup. Those in the stands yesterday rightly relished watching her effectively time-trial her way to a scintillating win in one minute 56.33 seconds, the third-fastest indoor time in history; sadly, their counterparts today will not have the same chance.

Earlier in the week, Hodgkinson had announced she would contest just one round of the 800m in Birmingham, forgoing her place in today’s final to focus instead on a high-profile race in France next week, where she has designs on breaking the world record. Adhering, by the letter, to the World Indoor Championships selection criteria, she showed up, competed and triumphed (albeit, only in her heat).

The purchase of a sports ticket provides no certainty of viewing a headline act. When Ronnie O’Sullivan withdrew from snooker’s Masters last month, those at Alexandra Palace saw the sport’s greatest ever player replaced by the unheralded figure of Chris Wakelin. A number of Major League Soccer teams have even gone so far as to issue vouchers to their fans as an apology for Lionel Messi failing to play against them for Inter Miami. British Athletics is already short enough of cash without having to issue refunds.

Some in today’s crowd will likely experience a sense of deja vu after Hodgkinson launched her own indoor meeting, the Keely Klassic, at this same Birmingham venue last year, only to withdraw from competing through injury.

Given those physical issues that blighted her throughout 2025, few in the sport would begrudge her taking a pragmatic approach to the upcoming year, and it is hard to argue that racing against a field consisting primarily of British club runners would stand her in better stead than taking on the world’s best in France next week.

In offering Hodgkinson’s place in the final to the next fastest finisher from yesterday’s heats, British Athletics ensured no one missed out due to her absence. It did, though, deny fans the spectacle of seeing Hodgkinson take on Issy Boffey, who won the other 800m heat a fortnight after moving into the all-time global top 10.

“Considering I didn’t have to do both rounds, why would I?” said Hodgkinson, who questioned why the UK Indoor Championships were staged a fortnight earlier than almost all other nations. “We came to a mutual agreement where both parties are happy. I turned up, ticked my selection, got a nice run out, and it worked for everyone.”

In fact, these UK Indoor Championships have been graced by more big names than any other in recent memory.

Competing here for the first time in a decade, Dina Asher-Smith reasserted her superiority over Amy Hunt to claim 60m gold. Asher-Smith, the national record holder over 60m, 100m and 200m, saw herself usurped as Britain’s sprint queen by Hunt at last summer’s World Championships, when Hunt claimed 200m silver. But Asher-Smith reigned supreme back over the shortest distance, storming to victory in 7.05sec – her third-quickest time ever – with Hunt second in 7.15sec.

“I’ve learned so much about myself over the past few years,” says Asher-Smith, who turned 30 in December. “Half the event is younger, but half is way older. The boundaries have changed – the career lifespan of a female athlete looks very different and I think that’s very inspiring.”

There were also victories for reigning world and European 60m champion Jeremiah Azu, and former world indoor pole vault champion Molly Caudery.

Unlike those in Sheffield a few years back, no one will have gone home feeling short-changed. And those denied the chance to see Hodgkinson today will just have to placate themselves with the knowledge that they have fallen victim to a regular sports spectating hazard.

Photograph by Martin Rickett/PA