Keely Hodgkinson smashed the women’s 800m indoor record by almost a second to extend the Olympic champion’s blazing start to the 2026 season.

Crossing the finish line in 1:54.87, Hodgkinson looked supreme en route to victory at the prestigious World Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Lievin.

Days after a stunning world-leading 800m run of 1:56.33 in the UK Indoor Championships heats, Hodgkinson bowed out of the final to instead focus on taking down Jolanda Ceplak’s mark of 1:55.82, which has stood for 24 years.

But that decision, to preserve her body for tonight’s audacious attempt, proved a smart one, with Thursday’s effort ensuring a revision of the record books and a precious addition to what is an already glittering resume.

“Thank god,” remarked an out-of-breath Hodgkinson. “That was fun. I’ve been looking forward to this for a few weeks. Merci.”

Hodgkinson came through 400m in 56.01 seconds, and hit the bell lap at 1:25.06 well ahead of the required pace, with her final 200m clocked at 29.93 seconds.

After Olympic gold and silver medals, as well as two silvers and a bronze at World Championships, Hodgkinson now has the indoor world record, completing an impressive response to what was a disappointing 2025 by her exceptionally high standards.

After being plagued by injuries, Hodgkinson was forced to settle for bronze at the Tokyo World Championships, behind training mate Georgia Hunter Bell, who clinched silver.

But without an Olympic Games or World Championships this year, the 23-year-old has targeted time goals with a sizzling run in Lievin.

After sensibly negotiating months of training with her “healthiest winter for years,” Hodgkinson insists she has “nothing holding me back” ahead of the World Indoor Championships in Poland next month.

“I've been very vocal about wanting to break it,” Hodgkinson said after her tune-up on Saturday in Birmingham. “I feel like it's my record to take because it was set on the exact day I was born — which is a fun fact.”

In a packed field, including Ethiopia’s Olympic silver medallist Tsige Duguma, Switzerland’s European U23 champion Audrey Werro and world indoor silver medallist Nigist Getachew, also of Ethiopia, Hodgkinson had the competition required to push her to new limits.

And, following Poland’s 4x400m international Anna Gryc as the pacemaker, she backed up her run last weekend by expertly clicking off the laps before storming to victory in a new world record, 0.95 seconds ahead of the previous mark.

Werro finished second in 3.51 seconds back in 1:58.38, with Duguma third in 1:58.83 and Getachew fourth with a personal best of 1:59.54.

Her next priority will be a gold medal at the World Indoor Championships next month, while a shot at the women’s 800m outdoor world record, standing at a daunting 1:53.28, is sure to follow.

Set by Czechoslovakia's Jarmila Kratochvílová in 1983, it remains the longest-standing, individual outdoor world record in athletics history, with Hodgkinson’s personal best set at 1:54.61.

TESERO, Italy (AP) — Nordic goodbye?

It could be the last Olympics for a sport that mixes the grace of ski jumping with the grind of cross-country skiing.

Nordic combined events at the Milan Cortina Games ended Thursday. And the International Olympic Committee is considering scrapping it from future Games because of a small TV audience and podium positions dominated by a tiny group of nations.

As if to illustrate that point, Norway swept took gold in all three events — including Thursday's men’s team sprint — and the same countries stood on the podium at all three Nordic combined events at these Winter Games.

“Hopefully these three events have been fun to watch and I think it has been a lot of nations fighting for their medals,” Jen Luraas Oftebro, who won three golds, said after sharing the win with teammate Andreas Skoglund. “Hopefully the IOC will see the value in that.”

Nordic combined was invented some 150 years ago when a Norwegian crown prince seeking glory as a champion paired the two disciplines he excelled at.

The contest opens with a daredevil ski jump to determine the starting order for a lung-busting cross-country ski race.

“Nordic combined is such a beautiful sport and I think it deserves much more popularity because I think the races are really, really fun to watch and the athletes are doing amazing,” said Jan Vytrval, a Czech competitor. “It deserves much more than to be deleted from the Olympics.”

The sport has been included since the first Winter Games in 1924, but it is the only winter sport that doesn’t include women. Female athletes who compete on the World Cup tour and in world championships have lobbied hard to change that.

But their fate is tied to the larger sport.

The IOC has previously put off a decision on the sport's future but will revisit the question after the Games wrap up Sunday.

“If it stays, it’s for both,” said Lasse Ottesen, the Nordic combined director of the International Ski Federation. “It makes no sense to say, ‘Yes, we’re just going to have the Nordic combined men in or, yes, we're going to take the men out and we’re going to throw the women in.’ I mean why would anyone do that in these times?”

Ottesen said FIS had exceeded requirements the IOC set out in 2022, increasing the competition in the women’s sport and building media interest globally. While audience numbers grew slightly over each of the last three Olympics, he conceded it was not as much as FIS expected.

Two of the three events — the men’s individual normal hill jump and large hill ski jump competitions that were each followed by 10 kilometer ski races — sold out all 4,500 tickets allocated and 90% of the team event tickets were sold, Ottesen said.

But, he added, the cross-country venue has twice that capacity, so it “looks a little bit thinner.”

FIS President Johan Eliasch attended the Feb. 11 normal hill event with IOC President Kirsty Coventry to try to showcase the excitement that two disciplines generate.

IOC member Ingmar de Vos, a member of the committee reviewing the fate of the sport, attended the large hill event.

The contests in the last three Olympics were won by Norway, Austria, Germany and Japan. In Milan Cortina, Germany and Japan — despite starting two of the races in first place after the jump — were shut out as Finland took two individual bronzes and a team silver.

That is progress in the eyes of the sport’s supporters — and the Finns, who gave a thrilling chase for the silver medal on Thursday.

“We have done our part with competing,” said Eero Hirvonen, who won an individual bronze and shared the silver with Ilkka Herola. “We have had really interesting competitions here and I think all the attention with what our success and medals have got in Finland ... I hope it helps.”

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics