{"id":511369,"date":"2026-06-21T17:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T17:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/511369\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T17:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T17:05:09","slug":"uk-athletics-championships-2026-keely-hodgkinson-pulls-out-of-400m-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/511369\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Athletics Championships 2026: Keely Hodgkinson pulls out of 400m final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keely Hodgkinson pulled out of the 400m final at the UK Athletics Championships moments before Sunday’s race after feeling “a little twinge”.<\/p>\n

The Olympic 800m champion has been competing over the shorter distance in a bid to improve her first-lap speed and challenge for the 800m world record this summer.<\/p>\n

After qualifying from Saturday’s heats, she warmed up for the final in Birmingham but stepped off the track right before the finalists were put under starters’ orders.<\/p>\n

Hodgkinson looked emotional as she stood at the side of the track before making her way back inside the Alexander Stadium.<\/p>\n

BBC’s commentary team later received a message from Hodgkinson’s coach Jenny Meadows, saying she withdrew as she “felt a little twinge in her last strides before the race” and that she “wanted to play it safe”.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old endured an injury-disrupted 2025 and her withdrawal on Sunday comes four weeks before the London Diamond League meeting, which she has earmarked for a tilt at the 800m world record.<\/a><\/p>\n

Amber Anning earned a reprieve after a false start in the 400m but the world indoor champion regrouped to retain her title, winning in a time of 50.16 seconds.<\/p>\n

Minutes before Hodgkinson’s withdrawal, her friend and rival Georgia Hunter Bell retained her 800m title, leading throughout to win by a distance in one minute 55.93 seconds, breaking a championship record set by Kelly Holmes in 1995.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keely Hodgkinson pulled out of the 400m final at the UK Athletics Championships moments before Sunday’s race after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-511369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}