Keely Hodgkinson says MRI shows 'split' hamstring after suspected tear

Keely Hodgkinson said an MRI scan has revealed an "abnormality" in her hamstring — a "split" tendon structure giving her two tendons instead of one — after a suspected tear last year, the Olympic champion said following her second-place finish in the 800m at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest in September. The 24-year-old said the anomaly can allow her to continue running when one tendon tears but may also make her more susceptible to further breakdowns.

Hodgkinson, 24, is regarded as part of the leading trio of women's 800m runners alongside Audrey Werro and Femke Broeders-Bol. She has endured two injury-plagued seasons since winning Olympic gold in Paris in 2024, waiting for more than a year to race again after suffering a hamstring injury the following February. On her return she won back-to-back Diamond League meetings in August 2025, set a new indoor 800m world record in February 2026 and then won gold at the World Indoor Championships a month later. Outdoors she has not matched those results, suffering three defeats by Werro, including surrendering her European crown to the 22-year-old.

"My body is quite literally built differently," said Hodgkinson. "Where most people have one tendon, mine is split - I have two - and we're trying to figure out if it's a strength or a weakness. So when one of them tore, I still had another one because it's split. In Birmingham, it didn't affect me during the race, but I could feel something wasn't quite right."

On how she is managing training around the issue, Hodgkinson said: "It's a weird one. You can still run on them. I haven't missed any training the last three weeks. But I've just had to alter my approach. I've had to take my foot off the speed [training], because that's when it's most risky."

Hodgkinson also recounted a separate incident in which she suffered cuts to both knees and a whiplash-like jarring to her back while jogging along a canal during a warm-down session, describing the past few months as a "battle". She acknowledged that the fall could have contributed to the hamstring problem at the European Championships in Birmingham, which ruled her out of Diamond League meets in Zurich and Brussels.

"Part of me wants to talk about it and then part of me doesn't, because I feel like my words get twisted or people are like 'oh, she's making excuses'," Hodgkinson said. "Going into the Europeans, I thought I was in the best shape ever. But when I fell over, that kind of messed me up way more than I thought it did. I think that's what contributed to my hamstring, because I couldn't really use my quad for a while."

Hodgkinson finished second to Swiss Audrey Werro in the 800m final at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest in September and had earlier announced she sustained another hamstring tear at the European Championships in Birmingham a few weeks prior. Reflecting on the season, she described 2026 as "frustrating" but added: "Overall, I'm finishing second in the world and I can't really be too hard on myself for that."

Hodgkinson will end her 2026 season in London at the all-female Athlos event, launched by Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, on Friday.