Keely Hodgkinson has acted as a catalyst for growth at booming middle-distance squad, writes Jasmine Collett, but coach Painter believes creating a fun environment is also crucial

The coach behind the success of British 800m record-holder Keely Hodgkinson has revealed he has experienced a rise in athletes joining his training group from across the world.

Trevor Painter coaches a group of middle-distance athletes in the North West of England alongside his wife Jenny Meadows, the two-time World Championship bronze medallist.

The coaching duo guided 21-year-old Hodgkinson to Olympic silver in 2021, European gold and world silver in 2022, plus world silver in 2023. During this time the number of runners joining their group has more than doubled.

Sarah Healy, an Irish international, started training under the guidance of Painter this year and finished runner-up in the 5th Avenue Mile in New York in September, just behind Jemma Reekie.

Scottish runners Erin Wallace and Eloise Walker have also relocated to join the team, as well as several male runners, who have 800m PBs roughly similar to Hodkingsons 1:55.19 best.

Whats more, Danish 800m record-holder Annemarie Nissen goes the extra mile to train with Painter as she spends most of her weekends flying from Denmark to Manchester.

Painter said: With the success that Keely has had, it does become a popular place to be and a popular destination. We have always been a strong group. There have always been 10 or 12 athletes but over the last couple of years there have been so many people wanting to come and we now have 26 athletes. But its also about the quality of people that are coming to us.

The group enjoyed a successful year with four athletes running at the World Championships in Budapest (Hodgkinson, Healy, Lewis Davey, Nissen), three at the European Under-23 Championships in Espoo (Hodgkinson, Healy, Walker) and three more at the European Under-20 Championships in Jerusalem (Ashley Nemits, Indienne King, Ava Lloyd).

They have been putting in dedicated efforts throughout the winter season, so far participating in two winter camps held in Font-Romeu in France and Potchefstroom in South Africa.

Painter hopes for the success to keep growing with the 2024 Olympics fast approaching.

He said: If we want to improve next year, we want to try and see if we can get even more athletes than we had last year going into the Olympics.

That is our challenge going into the new year, we want to see how many we can get in those teams.

The key to his coaching success seems to be very straightforward and the coach says he focuses on producing a thriving environment.

Its all about the environment, said Painter. If you create the right environment, youll retain the athletes so we try to have a lot of fun and enjoyment.

Theres always a lot of banter flying around which I feel helps with the pain that theyre going through because theres a lot of hard work going on.

If its just dull and hard work, then theyre not going to want to come back. Whereas, if they have the right environment around them, itll hook them in and keep them there.

When the personal growth happens, thats when they get better as an athlete and hopefully perform at higher levels.

I think if you begin making athletes act like a robot, it takes a lot of the enjoyment out of it.

You can never stop learning as a coach, you should always have your eyes open and be prepared to learn something new, because you never know how much it will help you.

And it seems that the coach still has big plans for Leigh Harriers ace Hodgkinson as he reveals she still has lots to go when it comes to her training programme.

He said: As you grow older as a woman, you can handle more and more volume so she is still not on a full programme yet. 

We would want to get to the full programme in the next three or four years but we just keep taking a little bit extra every year.

She just wants to be remembered as one of the greatest athletes that Britain has ever had and she is certainly making a very good start to doing that.

If she can carry on winning medals at every championships, then she will go down in history for that.