Keely Hodgkinson had awkward encounter with Jack Draper after gold medal blew up her Instagram following

Keely Hodgkinson was Team GB’s golden girl at this summer’s Olympics in Paris and now she’s up for another prize.

She is favourite to win BBC Sports Personality of the Year on Tuesday, leading the likes of Luke Littler and Jude Bellingham in a star-studded shortlist.

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It’s fair to say her life has changed since winning Olympic gold.

The 22-year-old was one of our best hopes heading into the Games, having won silver in Tokyo at just 19.

In doing so, she broke Kelly Holmes’ 800m record and she headed into this Olympics as the favourite.

She held her nerve and brought home the gold, cementing her status as one of the best 800m runners in history.

Her British record of 1:54:61, achieved earlier in 2024, is the sixth fastest by any woman ever.

That Olympic final in Paris was watched by more than nine million people as she became the first British female since Jessica Ennis-Hill to win an athletics gold medal.

It was the most watched event of this summer’s Olympics… so naturally it has been a whirlwind for her since then.

The middle-distance runner now boasts more than 500,000 Instagram followers and includes the likes of David Beckham, who congratulated her on her gold in the comments.

She gets recognised in the street a lot more too and is getting invited to glitzy events.

Recently, she sat in the front row at the Burberry spring/summer 2025 show, sandwiched between Skepta and fellow athlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson.

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She was rubbing shoulders with fellow young athletes like rising British tennis star Jack Draper, who was in deep conversation with Anna Wintour.

Speaking to The Times, Hodgkinson revealed the awkward interaction she had with Draper.

“I knew the name Jack Draper but I didn’t know the face and I’d seen him talking to everyone — [I was] like, who is this guy?” Hodgkinson said, laughing. “So I just asked, ‘What do you do?’”

Draper himself is also 22 and rising up the ranks of tennis quickly, he reached the US Open semi-final earlier this year and is currently number 15 in the world.

For Hodgkinson, the focus has always been on the track to reach the pinnacle of her sport.

“I’ve always hoped to win and, I guess, had that pressure. But this year I worked more psychologically on getting that gold medal mindset of ‘I really believe that’s where I belong’,” she says. 

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“I work hard all the time, but it’s months and months and months of talking about it and thinking about it and thinking about what decisions you’d make if you were an Olympic gold medallist. 

“A medallist might be more focused on what others are doing because you don’t want to miss out. A gold medallist is going to be so confident, they’re not looking at what other people are doing, they’re doing their best racing. It’s believing before you’ve actually done it.”

Though she also admitted she makes the most of her down-time too, finding a balance between her career and personal life.

“I make the most of my off-periods, so when I’m training I don’t feel like I’m missing out. I still go out with my friends — I’ll get dressed up, go for the dinner part and leave when they head off to the club. 

“Every year in September I’ll book a night out and they’ll get one night out with me. We’re going out in Manchester to [the Middle Eastern restaurant] Habbibi. Yeah, I’ll drink.”

Also on the BBC Sports Personality of the Year shortlist alongside Hodgkinson is Jude Bellingham, Luke Littler, Alex Yee, Joe Root and Sarah Storey.