Due to a fault in their plane’s GPS, the British team for the world indoor championships arrived at their hotel in Torun late on Wednesday night.Perhaps they should have asked Keely Hodgkinson to guide them.After all, she knows this place better than most, and she is absolutely locked on reaching her target – a first world gold medal – this weekend.“I’m looking forward to it and this last month has been great,” she says on the eve of the championships, which begin on Friday morning.“I couldn’t ask to be in a better position to be honest.

”It sometimes feels that Hodgkinson has been around for ever but she has only just turned 24.It was only five years ago this month that she burst on to the scene by crushing her rivals to win the European indoor championships in Torun.But as she returns to the place where it all began, Hodgkinson is determined to recapture the spirit of 2021.“The track looks a little bit different than it did,” she says.“But I’m embracing my 19-year-old fearless, doesn’t think too much, just turns up kind of attitude and it’s working for me.

”Hodgkinson is also a woman on a particular mission.During her glittering career, only a world indoor championship medal has eluded her, due to missing the event in 2022, 2024 and 2025 through injury.It only makes her more pumped, primed and ready to make up for lost time – especially after sustaining three different hamstring and back injuries following her Olympic gold in 2024.“It’s difficult for any athlete when you just want to compete,” she says.“You do all this training to get out there.

And every time I tried, I was just put back to the sidelines, start again, rehab.Months of it and months of it.“Definitely was draining on the mind and a lot of frustrations.But now I look back, I wouldn’t change any of it.I think it was a pivotal moment for me.

I learned a lot about myself.I had time off the track to just enjoy my life and just have some chill time.And I think it’s made me a better athlete.It made competing for me that much more fun and exciting.”Hodgkinson’s main rival for gold will be the 21-year-old Swiss athlete Audrey Werro.

However, Werro’s season’s best of 1min 57.27sec is nearly two and a half seconds behind the world record of 1:54.87 that Hodgkinson set in Liévin in February.erhaps the only thing that can beat Britain’s finest sportswoman is having to run three races in three days.But Hodgkinson isn’t the only star in a world indoor championships that features nine individual Olympic champions and 11 gold medallists from last year’s world championships in Tokyo.

The race of the championships? Well that appears to be the men’s 3,000m, as Britain’s Josh Kerr to regain the title he won in Glasgow in 2024.But he faces Cole Hocker, who beat him to gold over 1500m at the Olympics in Paris and Yared Nuguse, who took bronze in the same race.The presence of Geordie Beamish, who won the 1500m indoors in 2024 and gold in the 3,000m steeplechase in Tokyo, adds another dash of spice.Kerr will expect to win and Britain has another strong medal contender in Georgia Hunter Bell, who has run the fastest women’s 1500m in the world this year.But she will face a battle for gold with the Australian Jessica Hull and the American Nikki Hiltz among her rivals.

Men’s 3000m: A repeat of the 2024 Olympic 1500m final as the three medallists from Paris – Cole Hocker, Josh Kerr and Yared Nuguse – square off again.New Zealand's Geordie Beamish, the world 3,000m steeplechase champion, is also in the mix.Women’s 800m: It would be the shock of the championships if Keely Hodgkinson doesn’t win.It should be a coronation.Switerland’s Audrey Werro should follow her home while Isabelle Boffey has a medal chance.

Women’s 60m: This appears to be a straight shootout between the reigning women’s 100m champion, Julien Alfred, and the Italian Zaynab Dosso.But don’t discount Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith.Amy Hunt should also make the final.Men’s 800m: The 17-year-old American Cooper Lutkenhaus has a chance to make history by becoming the youngest ever world indoor medallist in a wide open event where Spain’s Mohamed Attaoui, Belgium’s Eliott Crestan and Australia’s Peter Bol all have chances.Men’s 60m: Britain’s Jeremiah Azu is the reigning champion, but that was in a weaker field.

The rising US star Jordan Anthony and the Jamaican Kishane Thompson, who finished with silver over 100m at the Olympics and world championships, are the men to beat.There are other British medal chances too.In the women’s pole vault Molly Caudery will be hoping to recapture the form that took her to a world indoor title in Glasgow two years ago, while Dina Asher-Smith and Amy Hunt are in the world’s top 10 over 60m – although both will have to go some to defeat Julien Alfred or Zaynab Dosso, who have both run sub seven seconds this season.Everywhere you look there are intriguing races and events.Can the 17-year-old American Cooper Lutkenhaus win the men’s 800m and become the youngest ever men’s world indoor champion? How will Britain’s Jeremiah Azu fare over 60m against the Jamaican Olympic 100m silver medallist Kishane Thompson, and the US stars Jordan Anthony and Trayvon Bromell? Can Mondo Duplantis break his 16th world record in the men’s pole vault?It all makes for three days of compelling competition.

As usual, the boards will be hard to beat,