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“Speed and style came together,” wrote Britain’s fastest-ever female 800m runner Keely Hodgkinson on Instagram, after competing in a custom-made all-black speed suit that she said had been “a year in the making”.
The 24-year-old Olympic gold medalist ended a mixed season in indomitable fashion at the first Athlos competition to be held outside of the U.S. on Friday. She won the 800m in front of a sold-out 10,500 crowd at StoneX stadium in north London in 1:56.40, just over two seconds slower than her British record of 1:54.33 set in June.
Athlos is a series of track and field meets for female athletes, designed to shine a spotlight on them more often than the Olympics allow. Both previous iterations, in 2024 and 2025, took place in New York. Part of the aim of Athlos is to sprinkle stardust on a sport which has not always found it easy to speak to an audience beyond its devotees. This is a setting where athletes can embrace their glamorous side, and Hodgkinson was not about to pass up the opportunity on Friday.
Her outfit immediately went viral, with many drawing comparisons between it and the striking clothing worn by the likes of Williams and Naomi Osaka, who have long had cultural crossover.
Hodgkinson told reporters after the race that she wanted to “feel a little bit sexy” by wearing the suit but it was not simply a fashion statement.
Free to read.
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<!-- SC_OFF -->“Speed and style came together,” wrote Britain’s fastest-ever female 800m runner Keely Hodgkinson on Instagram, after competing in a custom-made all-black speed suit that she said had been “a year in the making”.
The 24-year-old Olympic gold medalist ended a mixed season in indomitable fashion at the first Athlos competition to be held outside of the U.S. on Friday. She won the 800m in front of a sold-out 10,500 crowd at StoneX stadium in north London in 1:56.40, just over two seconds slower than her British record of 1:54.33 set in June.
Athlos is a series of track and field meets for female athletes, designed to shine a spotlight on them more often than the Olympics allow. Both previous iterations, in 2024 and 2025, took place in New York. Part of the aim of Athlos is to sprinkle stardust on a sport which has not always found it easy to speak to an audience beyond its devotees. This is a setting where athletes can embrace their glamorous side, and Hodgkinson was not about to pass up the opportunity on Friday.
Her outfit immediately went viral, with many drawing comparisons between it and the striking clothing worn by the likes of Williams and Naomi Osaka, who have long had cultural crossover.
Hodgkinson told reporters after the race that she wanted to “feel a little bit sexy” by wearing the suit but it was not simply a fashion statement.
Free to read.
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