Keely Hodgkinson vows to make pressure work in her favour

Keely Hodgkinson insists she can handle the pressure and will use it to fire her to World Indoor Championships glory.

The 20-year-old is overwhelming favourite for the 800m title in Belgrade this weekend.

It comes after a stunning last year where she became the first British woman to break a world under-20 record for 36 years, running the 800m in one minute 59.03 seconds, winning 800m European Indoor gold and claiming a stunning Olympic silver in Tokyo.

Hodgkinson knows she is under the spotlight – especially as one of the few successes of a injury-hit and disappointing Tokyo Games for Team GB’s athletics squad – and is ready to deal with it.

“It keeps me going. I look at it as pressure and expectation – although it is there it fuels me rather than pulls me down,” said the British champion, who races in the heats in Serbia on Saturday.

t keeps me going. I look at it as pressure and expectation – although it is there it fuels me rather than pulls me down,- Keely Hodgkinson

“Everything that happened meant it was a really great year and it’s great I have an Olympic medal to my name but it’s a new year and it doesn’t mean I’m going to get a gold this year. I have to work for it.

“That’s the approach to have, 2021 is something I can look back on when I’ve retired.

“Now I expect more of myself. I expect times to be quicker, more consistency, I want to target the bigger races – in the Grand Prix and Diamond Leagues.

“I want to be coming higher, there were a lot of fourth and fifths last year. I want to be winning them now. That’s how the mentality has changed, trying to come up with better results.”

Hodgkinson has already accomplished one of her 2022 goals by breaking the British indoor record in Birmingham in February but has