Keely Hodgkinson could end her career as one of the greatest of all time while the 17-year-old Australian sprinter Gout Gout is the real deal, Sebastian Coe has predicted on the eve of the world championships in Tokyo.
Coe won two Olympic 1500m gold medals, broke nine world records and has known most of track and field’s biggest stars in the past 50 years. So his words carry extra weight, particularly when it comes to the 800m, the event in which he held the world record for 18 years.
When asked whether Hodgkinson, who took Olympic gold in Paris, could end her career as one of the greatest Britain has produced, Coe was emphatic – and then went even further.
“Yeah, she absolutely could,” he replied. “I’ve no doubt about that. Absolutely, for sure. And she could end up at the top of the heap internationally if she goes on.
“I’ve spoken to her enough times to know that mentally, she’s mahogany hard,” he added. “She is absolutely committed to wanting to end her career top of the heap and there’s no reason why she shouldn’t.”
Coe also praised Hodgkinson’s coaches, Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows, for getting her back to her best after hamstring and back issues. The 23-year-old ran 1min 54sec in August in Silesia, her first run for 376 days, before a 1:55 in Lausanne four days later.
Sebastian Coe greets a triumphant Keely Hodgkinson after she won her 800m gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters
“You have to marvel at how she has come back,” Coe said. “To be out injured and then basically your first step foot on the track and you’re running 1:54. We’ve been saying this for a long time, she is the real deal.
“The only caution I would counsel is sometimes you’re so keen to get back into competition that you almost perform above the level of endurance and fitness that you have. What I thought was quite clever was doing two races back-to-back because what she was clearly testing was that thesis really.
“Did she have enough in the tank to go back-to-back? Which is what she’s going to be asked to do in Tokyo? And the answer was clearly a resounding yes.”
Coe also said that he had been excited by Gout Gout, who has already run a wind-assisted 9.98 for the 100m and a 19.84 for 200m.
Australian teenager Gout Gout is shaping up to be a sprint sensation. Photograph: Richard Wainwright/AAP
“At 17 I was probably just about qualifying for the inter-counties,” said Coe. “He’s an outstanding athlete. I was very privileged to have supper with him after the Diamond League in Monaco, with his coach. A really, really good Australian coach. A female coach [Di Sheppard], too, which is always good.
“He’s very level-headed. He’s clearly got a lot of talent. He’s got, in James Templeton, a good manager that isn’t forcing him too quickly. Clearly he is the real deal.
“The biggest challenge is to take an athlete from his age through the next three-four years into the senior ranks, safely, mentally in decent shape and physically not badly damaged. I thought he was incredibly level-headed. Seemed to know what he was doing. I think it’s a great story.”
But while the Australian media is in force in Tokyo to follow Gout Gout, Coe said it was too early to burden him with the expectation of a medal. “It will be a huge learning curve for him,” Coe said. “He’s probably at this moment too young to be afraid and doesn’t quite understand how complicated it gets later on.”
Coe also insisted that World Athletics would be ready for a typhoon in Tokyo after the tropical storm Tapah caused dozens of flights to be cancelled out of Hong Kong on Monday. “First of all, let’s hope there isn’t one,” he said. “Second, we do have the full meteorological prediction and predictive teams out there at the moment.”
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