Just one day after she won the gold medal in the 800m at the Paris Olympics, Keely Hodgkinson had been immortalised in Nanchester’s Stevenson Square
Born in Atherton she announced herself world stage winning a silver medal three years ago at the Tokyo Games at the age of 19
She won the European title in 2022 and 2024 and the European indoor title in 2021 and 2023. She also won a silver medal at the World Championships in 2022 and 2023 as well as at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
Keely began her sporting career at Leigh Harriers at the age of nine after running in the Primary Schools XC Championships, finishing in 1st place
At the age of 13 she overcame adversity and is now partially deaf in one of her ears after losing 95% of her hearing due to a tumour.
Speaking to Sky Sports about her tumour, Keely revealed:
“I had a mastoidectomy which is from memory a type of tumour – but non-cancerous or anything, it wasn’t majorly life-threatening – that had been growing for ten years.”It crushed through my hearing bones and it was just touching my spine.
“So the risk for the operation was to take it out or keep it in. If you keep it in and let it grow, it can hit the spine and I could end up with Facial Palsy.
“Now that was quite scary for a 13-year-old girl to think that could happen, but the bones were already crushed anyway so they tried to save them but that turned out why I had a lot of hearing problems growing up.”
