Olympic star Keely Hodgkinson reveals bizarre 'abnormality' after MRI discovery following latest injury scare: 'My body is built differently'

Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson says an MRI scan has revealed she has an 'abnormality' in her hamstring.

After a suspected tear last year, Hodgkinson discovered she had a 'split' hamstring, giving her two tendons instead of one.

The 24-year-old has continued running despite learning of the anomaly, although she is still trying to determine whether it is a blessing or a curse.

Following her second-place finish behind Switzerland's Audrey Werro in the 800m final at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest earlier this month, Hodgkinson announced she had sustained another hamstring tear at the European Championships in Birmingham a few weeks earlier.

Hodgkinson said: 'My body is quite literally built different. I have two tendons where the tendon tore (last year). So where everyone has one tendon, mine is split, so I have two.

'We’re trying to figure out if it’s a strength or a weakness. So when one of them tore, I still had the other one because it split like this. You don’t feel the injury until later on, when it got a bit tight.'

Hodgkinson believes it is something she was born with, adding: 'It’s just how I’m made. We found out last year when I tore it on the MRI scan.

'As a pro, it means that when one is down, I can still run on the other one that works. But as a con, maybe it’s slightly weaker than the other one that’s attached.'

Hodgkinson's primary concern, particularly after two injury-plagued years, including a lay-off lasting more than 12 months, was how it would affect her racing.

'It’s a weird one,' Hodgkinson explained. 'You can still run on them, there’s no danger of it moving (to the other one).

'I haven’t missed any training over the last three weeks. I’ve just had to alter my approach, take my foot off the speed because that’s when it’s most risky, and go at it from a strength perspective. My body heals very, very well, so I couldn’t really feel anything.

'It feels good. I’ve not really felt anything for, like, two weeks now. It’s more the mental side. You’re very hyper-aware, like, "Oh, is that something? Is it not? Do I trust my body to go again?".'

Since claiming Olympic gold in Paris in 2024, Hodgkinson's progress has been repeatedly disrupted by injury. A hamstring problem suffered the following February sidelined her for more than a year before she finally returned to competition.

She made an immediate impact on her comeback in August 2025, winning successive Diamond League races, before carrying that momentum into the following indoor season. Hodgkinson broke the world indoor 800m record in February and added World Indoor gold a month later.

Her outdoor campaign, however, has proved more challenging. The Briton has been beaten three times by Werro this year, including in the race where she surrendered her European title to the Swiss athlete.

Hodgkinson recently revealed that a fall while jogging along a Manchester canal during a warm-down left her with cuts to both knees and a jarring impact to her back, an incident she described as turning recent months into a 'battle'.

While she acknowledged the accident may have played a part in the hamstring issue that forced her to miss Diamond League meetings in Zurich and Brussels, Hodgkinson insisted she was not using it as an excuse for her performances.

'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 concludes her season on Friday night in London at Athlos, the all-female competition launched by Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian.