Since 2019, Hodgkinson has educated with coaches Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows in Manchester.
Meadows, a former worldwide runner, was in France to look at her protege take virtually a second off the 800m indoor record, set by Slovenia’s Jolanda Ceplak virtually 24 years in the past.
“She actually said to me the day before: ‘obviously I know I’m going to get it’,” stated Meadows.
“There had been so many benchmarks we measure in training, we had no doubt that she would do it.
“Her largest concern was to set a world record, however be upset with the time. She stated ‘what if I can not smile? What if I’ve obtained the world record, and everybody’s so excited, and I feel, oh that was garbage. I may have gone quicker’?”
The date – 19 February 2026 – had long been set in the diary by Meadows and Hodgkinson given the track in Lievin is notoriously fast.
“Lievin has had quite a lot of world data over time, and we sort of thought ‘you realize what, let’s go along with the statistics’,” Meadows stated.
“We’re solely most likely going to get one alternative throughout this indoor season to go for it. So that is the occasion that we picked, and that is the date we have actually had etched in our minds the final three months.”
“I’ve obtained to say, the time she did was the naked minimal of what she was pleased with,” Meadows added.
“She positively would have appreciated to run quicker, and there was positively half a second, perhaps even as much as one second in these legs.”
