Since 2019, Hodgkinson has trained with coaches Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows in Manchester.
Meadows, a former international runner, was in France to see her protégé beat the indoor 800 meters record by almost a second, set by Slovenia’s Jolanda Ceplak almost 24 years ago.
“She actually told me the day before, ‘I obviously know I’m going to get it,’” Meadows said.
“There were so many benchmarks we measured in training that we had no doubt she would do it.
“Her biggest fear was setting a world record, but being disappointed with the time. She said, ‘What if I can’t smile? What if I have the world record and everyone is so excited that I think, oh, that was stupid? I could have gone faster.'”
Meadows and Hodgkinson had long since put the date, Feb. 19, 2026, in the diary, as the track at Lievin is notoriously fast.
“Lievin has had a lot of world records over the years, and we thought, ‘You know what? Let’s go with the stats,'” Meadows said.
“We’ll probably only have one chance this indoor season to try it. So that’s the event we picked, and that’s the date we’ve really had stuck in our minds for the last three months.”
“I have to say the length of time he did it was the least I was happy with,” Meadows added.
“He definitely would have liked to run faster, and there was definitely half a second, maybe even up to a second in those legs.”