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Keely Hodgkinson is poised to play a pivotal role in helping UK Athletics emerge from another seven-figure loss and thrive ahead of a potential golden era for the sport.
Following a successful Olympics in Paris for Team GB, which included 10 medals in athletics, governing body UK Athletics has announced its latest financial figures with a £1.2m loss for the year ending 31 March. That figure is ahead of schedule following the previous year’s loss of £3.7m, with chair Ian Beattie adamant the sport is on track to lose just £250,000 next year and eventually break even by 2026.
And after a stunning Olympic gold in the women’s 800m, Hodgkinson is the heavy favourite to win this year’s Sports Personality of the Year and lead the next generation of British athletics.
“I think Keely was so important,” chief executive Jack Buckner said. “Apart from Mo Farah she’s the first track and field gold medalist since 2012.
“I think it means a massive amount. I think also her audience, and who she attracts, and the way she presents herself.
“We would be keen to work with her and her management team on events and partnerships and things like that. So yes she’ll absolutely be at the heart of many of our plans.”
In addition to showcasing its biggest stars such as Hodgkinson, those plans include a commitment to the London Diamond League, despite the emergence of Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam Track, which announced this week that it will launch its three-day circuit in Kingston Jamaica next year.
Instead, UKA is confident, despite previously losing £400,000 for the one-day track and field extravaganza, the Diamond League can emerge as the sport’s answer to Formula One’s British Grand Prix held annually at Silverstone, especially with unannounced innovation to the circuit’s traditional events and schedule.
“We’re very positive about the direction that that’s going,” Beattie said. “But we think in the medium to longer term, the ability to attract more commercial money, different broadcasting deals with these partners is significantly improved.
“So we’re quite excited about it. We still think it’s the top Diamond League event in terms of crowd, in terms of excitement, in terms of everything we see, we think it’s really important for us as a sport and we we’re absolutely clear with our partners, we can turn it around, to become very profitable. It feels for me we can make the Diamond League like our Silverstone.
“It’s already the biggest one-day athletics meet in the world. And we think it can be the biggest and the best. And just off the back of this year, the level of innovation that’s going to be coming in the Diamond League, I just wouldn’t miss it next year. Some of the ideas that are being talked about will really raise the bar once again in that event.”
Beattie’s hint at innovation comes after 400m hurdler Karsten Warholm and pole vaulter Armand Duplantis raced in a 100m exhibition earlier this year.
On top of promoting its biggest stars and building around the Diamond League, UKA is hopeful London can host the World Athletics Championships after a feasibility study into a bid for either 2029 or 2031.
And while the plan is clear for the short-term surrounding the traditional Diamond League circuit, Buckner revealed talks did take place with Johnson and his team, though uncertainty surrounding the sport’s potential over a longer format prevented progress.
“They did approach us,” Buckner revealed. “We had a really good discussion with them. But you’ve got to you’ve got to get your product right. We think the Diamond League is a product that’s 85-90 percent the way there you know.
“If other things like the Michael Johnson event came back, and the format worked, of course we continue to look at it.
“The format stands at the moment, it doesn’t work with the Diamond League and again it may have changed but at one point in time there was a three-day format and the Diamond League is a one-day format. It’s good they’re trialing it in different stages but three days of pure track athletics is a lot. It’s a lot of tickets to sell in the London Stadium, just for track athletics and the cost base, comes pretty high there.
“It’s a model that can work in different environments and Kingston may be the right place for it and certainly the United States, you know, it may work there. That’s not to say we wouldn’t chat to them and we would continue to have talks with them. We’ll certainly talk to anybody who’s got credible event ideas that can work.”
