Keely Hodgkinson reveals Grand Slam track stance after fellow GB stars signed lucrative deals
Keely Hodgkinson will race in one of upstart competition's four events next year but the 800m Olympic champion does not plan to commit to entire programme for 2025
Olympic hero Keely Hodgkinson plans to run one weekend of Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam track event – but she is not committing to the upstart competition’s full programme.
While GB stars Josh Kerr and Matthew Hudson-Smith are among those to have signed up as members of the four-event series, Hodgkinson is taking a wait-and-see approach.
And that will be music to the ears of UK Athletics bosses, who recently said that they want to make Hodgkinson a central figure in their attempt to turn the London Diamond League into “the Silverstone of athletics.”
Hodgkinson said: “I'd like to do one of the meets but I haven't signed up to do all of them. I feel like it's a really busy year next year.
READ MORE: Inside Keely Hodgkinson's 2024 - from injury to Olympic glory for SPOTY favouriteREAD MORE: Keely Hodgkinson: UK Athletics look to cash in on SPOTY favourite after posting £1.2m loss“I think it's great what he's doing but I just don't feel like it's for me next year. And I guess we'll see where the league goes after that.”
If Hodgkinson does appear at a Grand Slam meet between April and June she will need to run an 800m and 1500m on the same weekend.
She last competed over the longer distance as an U17 in April 2018 and admits: “It's been a long time but I do train to be able to run a decent 1500. I just would rather not.
“But if I get in, I think if you get in a good race with some good girls, hopefully I could be pulled around to a pretty decent time for myself.”
Hodgkinson is the overwhelming favourite to win Tuesday night's BBC Sports Personality of the Year award and could become the fourth consecutive woman to win the award.
"It's a great recognition and it's really nice and it's an honour to hope that my achievements have been put forward as something that Britain loved to watch and I really enjoyed competing," she said.
"It's nice to get that recognition and hopefully join a nice long list of some of Britain's greatest achievers in this award."
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