The star’s name might not have been able to compete, but the young audience that came along to her event in Birmingham is a sign of something to build on
Given the tightrope that the world’s best athletes perpetually tread between supreme fitness and plan-shredding injury, billing an event around one name was always going to be a massive risk.
That point was underlined emphatically on Thursday when the news came through that a hamstring problem sustained during training was going to stop Keely Hodgkinson from competing at the meeting which bears her name.
Keely Klassic
Plan A had been for the Olympic champion to bring the house down on the inaugural Keely Klassic at Birmingham’s Utilita Arena by destroying the 800m indoor world record that has stood since the very day she was born.
It was a beautifully crafted script and the fact that it had to be torn up and that she wasn’t even able to toe the starting line for the first time since her golden night in Paris did somewhat burst the bubble that had been building nicely in the run-up to event day.
However, the show needed to go on. As well as boosting the skyrocketing profile of the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year, the bar had been set high in terms of what this new addition to the athletics calendar was looking to achieve.
“The goal is to bring something fun, something different,” Hodgkinson told the February issue of AW. “We want to make it more a show than just an event – something where people come and have fun.”
In that same interview, she also added that “athletics needs modernizing”, a recurring theme in the sport. With projects such as this one, and the much talked about Grand Slam Track, getting off the ground there is a sense of growing momentum when it comes to addressing the problem. 
Even though she wasn’t in race mode, the star of the show still made sure she was a huge presence throughout the programme, welcoming the crowd, signing countless autographs, speaking with the media, cheering on her fellow athletes from the sidelines, and, at one point, even ringing the bell for the final lap in some of the early races.
In terms of the format for the day, there was nothing radically new on the show, perhaps except a “beat the pro” race in which a brave member of the crowd – Declan – volunteered to contest a 400m race in which he was given a head start of around 80m over an opponent not only dressed in a Wolverine costume but also very clearly in superior athletic shape. To give him his due, Declan clung on to sneak it.
It’s in the gaps between the events where there is real scope to make more of a significant difference to the experience of the paying customer and the presence of DJ Tony Perry – who has worked at sporting showpieces such as the UEFA Euros, Champions League, FIFA World Cup and Soccer Aid – kept proceedings rattling along, while compere Andy Collins did a fine job of whipping up the crowd and getting them dancing in the aisles.
Though there were gaps in the stands, the thumping soundtrack meant the off-track energy built as the afternoon progressed and it became increasingly apparent that the lure of Britain’s current superstar had attracted a distinctly younger audience than you might normally expect at an athletics meeting.
You couldn’t help but wonder just how much of a roar would have been generated if Hodgkinson had been running but, among the positives to be taken from the Keely Klassic, the demographic of the highly engaged audience is surely the biggest. There will be a very different feeling, for example, at the next weekend’s UK Indoor Championships.
Lina Nielsen (Getty)
When it came to athletics, there were moments of real quality on show, too. Lina Nielsen (women’s 300m) and Neil Gourley (men’s 1000m) left the arena as British record-holders, while the rejigged schedule ended with Georgia Hunter Bell just falling short on her bid to replace Laura Muir as the nation’s fastest-ever woman over 1500m indoors. Hunter Bell’s efforts still earned her a “Keely Crown” and a seat on the winners’ throne, though.
All of that was part of the Keely Klassic staging that worked very well. Was it perfect? No, but the very fact this meeting now exists, given the loss of the once-annual Indoor Grand Prix, is another reason to be cheerful.
READ MORE: Keely Klassic coverage
So while the brave plan from the organizers to gamble and pin all of their hopes on their biggest name might not quite have worked entirely, there is unmistakeably the basis of something to build on here. Was there a feeling of athletics revolution in the air? Not quite. The opening of an avenue to brighten the future of track and field athletics? Absolutely.
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