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Hodgkinson happy to be back on track ahead of Tokyo worlds / Photo: © AFP
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Hodgkinson happy to be back on track ahead of Tokyo worlds
Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson said she was "super happy" to make her comeback to competition, a year after taking 800 metres gold at the Paris Games and in timely fashion before next month's world championships.
The 23-year-old Briton, also a two-time world silver medallist, will compete in the two-lap race at the Diamond League meeting in Silesia, Poland, on Saturday.
"Yeah, it's been a long time, over a year since Paris," Hodginkson told a press conference on Friday.
"That wasn't my plan to be this late, but I'm just super happy to get back in the start line.
"I missed it. I missed it a lot. This is what I trained to do. So I can't wait to get out there and just give it my absolute best. And yeah, we'll see what happens."
It marks the end of a long road back from a hamstring injury for Hodgkinson.
She was forced to withdraw from an event in February that bore her name – the Keely Klassic, in which she wanted a tilt at the long-standing world indoor 800m world record.
Hodgkinson then pulled out of last month's Diamond League meet in London.
But just a month away from the world championships in Tokyo, Hodgkinson will return to action in southwest Poland.
In what looks like a perfect line-up for a comeback after so long out of elite competition, the field is relatively moderate.
Oratile Nowe of Botswana has the best season's best with 1min 57.49sec, while the field also includes the Australian duo of Abbey Caldwell and Catriona Bisset, American Raevyn Rogers and Slovakia's Gabriela Gajanova, who finished runner-up to Hodgkinson in the European championships in Rome last year.
Her biggest rivals such as Kenya's Mary Moraa, Ethiopian Tsige Duguma and South African Prudence Sekgodiso are all absent, while Hodgkinson's in-form training partner Georgia Hunter Bell will race the 1,500m in Chorzow.
Following 800m wins at the Diamond League events in Stockholm and London, Hunter Bell will test herself in the longer event against Ethiopia's Gudaf Tsegay and Diribe Welteji in a high-quality line-up.
Hodgkinson, however, is expected to go head-to-head with Hunter Bell, the Olympic 1500m bronze medallist, over 800m at the Lausanne Diamond League next week as the days count down to Tokyo.
"Tomorrow is just a stepping stone on the way there," Hodgkinson said. "I'm looking forward to getting out there, just being competitive again, and I've come out ready to go.
"I'm just excited to put something together. It's been a frustrating year, for real.
"It's been so long coming off the back of winning the Olympics last year, not ideal at all, that I just couldn't even get on the start line. And it's definitely been a bit upsetting at times.
"It's been frustrating, but it makes the good times sweeter."
S.Hall--SFF
