PARIS: Keely Hodgkinson has a habit of being late but on Monday the British runner was right on time as she was crowned 800 metres Olympic champion – a remarkable achievement given at one point in her life she could not walk.
The 22-year-old buried a reputation for being always the bridesmaid and never the bride as she stormed to victory, becoming the first British woman to win gold in the event since Kelly Holmes in Athens in 2004.
Her habit of being late is one of her rare failings but Trevor Painter, who coaches her along with his wife, Jenny Meadows, says he is not going to tell her to change.
"Sometimes it's 20 to 25 minutes late and she just strolls in smiling, 'Whatever,'" Painter told Women's Health.
"But if we contain her, put her in a box and tell her she's got to conform to this, she'll not be the person we saw run 1 minute 54.61 seconds in London (a British record at the Diamond League meeting last month).
"That kind of free-spirited nature makes her who she is."
Hodgkinson battled back from being incapacitated in her early teens by a non-cancerous tumour in an ear.
"It had grown for 10 years and no one had spotted it," she told the Guardian.
"And it was so close to my nervous system that I could have had facial palsy if it had touched the nerve. So it was a bit risky getting it out."
She told Sky Sports: "I couldn't walk – which is weird to think – because it's in your ear, your balance and things like that.
"But luckily it all went to plan. They got rid of it and I'm just left with missing hearing. It's not too bad."
Hodgkinson lost 95 percent of her hearing in the ear.
"So when people are wearing masks and are talking I struggle – it's made me realise how much I rely on lip reading," she said.
At one stage Hodgkinson was leaning towards taking up swimming but her father Dean saw her future in athletics.
She said he bribed her with a pair of shoes when she was nervous about taking part in a school race at the age of about 12.
Now she thanks him for forcing her out of her "comfort zone."
In 2021 she won Olympic silver in Tokyo followed by runners-up spots at the world championships (2022 and 2023) and Commonwealth Games (2022).
Her efforts were also a wonderful payback for the money Dean and mother Rachel ploughed into her career at a time when she received no outside funding.
Even though Holmes ran the same event, she is not Hodgkinson's role model.
Instead, as a young girl, it was British Olympic diver Tom Daley who caught her eye.
"It was actually Tom Daley, because everyone used to fancy him," she told the Guardian.
"I was like 10. But my first memory on the track was actually watching (British heptathlete) Jessica Ennis winning gold in 2012."
Hodgkinson does have a life outside athletics, admitting she likes the "odd glass of wine."
But her number-one interest off the track is vintage cars.
"I saw a really nice car on Pinterest," she told the Daily Mail.
"My brother was like, 'Do you know how expensive they are?' and I said, 'If I win the Olympics I will get myself that car (a Porsche Cayman).'"
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