by Kelly Sotheton supported Golden Girl, Keely Hodgkinson, to win her three European peat on home at home next summer.
Olympic gold last year made Hodgkinson a familiar name and its unforgettable 2024 was crowned with the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Prize.
The 23 -year -old woman will go to Tokyo in September, her eyes on the first world championship title while the following year will see her candidacy for a third successive European crown in Birmingham, which welcomed the European athletics championships 2026.
Sotheton, who won three Olympic bronze medals through Athens and Beijing, is no doubt that a gold medal will be on Hodgkinson’s neck at the Alexander stadium next summer – the only question is how she will be won.
“Keely is a legend in progress,” she said. “She is always an extremely young athlete but everyone knows who she is.
“The accumulation of her hard work leading to Paris and what she did, everyone expected it and she delivered on demand.
“I can only see that her expectations will not be” if “she wins but instead” how “she wins him (in Birmingham) and it is the exciting part.
“For the good of athletics, you want exciting races and Keely will always put an exciting race.
“I probably put a gold medal around her neck and I should probably not. But it is the expectation of her now and rightly.”
The return of Birmingham to The Sporting Spotlight next summer will only be on the Commonwealth Games and will be the first time that Europeans were organized in the United Kingdom.
The competition will also be the first autonomous outdoor athletics event organized in Great Britain since the 2017 world athletics championships in London.
Sotheton knows the importance of having a home crowd in a major championship, winning the Silver Pentathlon to Europeans inside in 2007.
And with the hero of West Midlands, Matt Hudson-Smith, having grown up a few kilometers on the road to the Alexander stadium, Sotherton knows that these emblematic British names on the starting sheet can guarantee a closed window in 2026.
“For Matt Hudson-Smith, he is formed here, he started his athletics career here about 17 years ago, so he is a real local athlete who is really important,” she said.
“Everyone wants to see not only British athletes, but people who were born in the city and who grew up, so I’m sure Matt is really looking forward to participating here.
“The last time he was here, he arrived second at Birmingham 2022 at the Commonwealth Games, so he will obviously want to finish with a gold.
“Anyone who was here and looked at Birmingham 2022 knows that this is a magic stadium.
“I cannot see it that it is greater and better in 2026. Birmingham really knows how to organize an event.”
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