Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson has revealed her ambition to smash three of athletics’ biggest barriers by going sub-50 for 400m and sub-four for 1500m to add to her world-class 800m career.

From Roger Bannister’s sub-four-minute mile to Sabastian Sawe’s sub-two-hour marathon, athletes are drawn to round-numbered barriers. Even club runners are enticed by challenges such as three hours for the marathon or 20 minutes for 5km.

Keely Hodgkinson is not immune either. “Wouldn’t it be really cool to do a sub-50, sub-2min and sub-4min in my career?” she says, referring to 400m, 800m and 1500m targets.

“It would be a really good overall aim to have. Breaking 50 will be hard and I’ve not even run a 1500m since I was 16 but it will be a nice challenge.”

Hodgkinson’s best for 400m is 51.49 from the recent indoor season although she clocked a 50.10 relay split at the World Indoor Championships in Poland this year.

In the 800m she is of course easily inside two minutes already with a British record of 1:54.61 set at the London Diamond League in 2024.

At 1500m her best is a modest 4:29.05 but she ran this in 2018 after just turning 16 and hasn’t tackled the distance since.

“It’s a recent idea as I’ve only been able to put in proper 400m training recently,” she added, after an injury-hit 2025 season.

What will be the hardest barrier to break? "I think breaking 50 seconds will be harder but I’m not sure. I’d need to speak to Georgia (Hunter Bell). She keeps asking me when I’m going to run a 1500m.

“I think the only person to do this is Caster Semenya (49.62, 1:54.25 and 3:59.92) so it’d be really cool to end my career having done all that.”

Hodgkinson was speaking with 50 days to go before the 2026 Diamond League in London – also known as the Novuna London Athletics Meet – where she will race the 800m.

Another one of her targets is Jarmila Kratochvilova’s long-standing world record of 1:53.28 although in contrast to Josh Kerr’s bold public ambition to break the world mile record at the meeting, she is unsure at this stage whether she will fully commit to breaking Kratochvilova’s mark on July 18 at the London Stadium.

“Obviously I’d love to have that happen on home soil,” she says. “As a British person competing there it’s so much fun and the main thing I’m looking forward to this summer.

“We will have a plan A of what we’d like to happen but sometimes the sport has its own plans. I might come into shape where I can have a go at it sooner, or maybe it might be later in the season. Right now my preparation has gone very well and I’m very happy. I’ve been healthy for a year now which is really fun and I have not missed a training session, so I’m in a really good place.”

Hodgkinson says she is viewing the 2026 summer as a season of two halves. “The first half are the Diamond Leagues like London and the second half brings all the championships.”

She is unlikely to run in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow but she is keen to defend her 800m title at the European Championships in Birmingham, which brings us to another target.

She says: “I’ve got four European titles now - two indoors and two outdoors - and one of my little goals is to break Laura Muir’s number of European titles. I think she has about seven (two outdoors, five indoors), which is crazy.”

Firstly, Hodgkinson will race 400m at the Rome Diamond League next Thursday (June 4) before an 800m in the Stockholm. “The 400m is a bit of fun and something different,” she says.

“The line up is crazy in Rome so I’m really throwing myself in the deep end there. It’s quite good to put myself in a position where on paper I’m probably going in slowest and up against girls who are world finalists and medallists in the event.

“I’ve always considered myself a 400/800m athlete and I don’t think I’ve shown my potential in the 400m although I had a bit of a glimpse of what I could do during the indoor season. If I can bring that 400m time then it will make the first lap of an 800m feel nice.”

Not as nice as winning in London, though. “Racing in the Diamond League on home soil is probably the thing I’m looking forward to the most this summer,” she says.