Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson has aimed a dig at West Ham United amid questions about the availability of their home ground for the 2029 World Athletics Championships. The Hammers occupy the London Stadium, venue for the athletics events at the 2012 Olympics, with their tenancy complicating the UK's ambitions of staging another sporting event 17 years on.

The worlds could make a return to Europe in 2029 following consecutive championships in Asia, though cities elsewhere have also been mooted. Tokyo played host to the 2025 edition, while it will head to Beijing next year.

Nevertheless, this could be derailed by the Hammers' apparent unwillingness to permit their stadium to be utilised for athletics once the 2029/30 football season has started. The World Championships have taken place in September in recent years, potentially conflicting with the London outfit's league and cup fixtures.

Hodgkinson, who recently claimed 800m gold at the World Indoor Championships in Poland after winning the same event at the Paris Olympics, is a Manchester United supporter and made light of the contrasting achievements of Team GB and West Ham when addressing the issue on social media. "The GB team will bring back more medals to that stadium than West Ham have seen in their entire history," she joked.

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Hodgkinson's remark received a varied response, with one suggesting she was "going in Marco Boogers style" - a nod to a West Ham striker famously dismissed in a Premier League game at Old Trafford. "As a West Ham fan I am deeply offended by the truth in your comment," said another, seemingly taking the athlete's joke in good spirits.

Not all of the reactions were favourable, however. "Show some respect to West Ham which is a fine institution with the decent folk who support them. Cheap laugh and not a good look," one said. "Not sure what your point is? West Ham have every right to say no," was the verdict from another.

West Ham relocated to the London Stadium in 2016, four years on from the London Olympics. The venue played host to the World Championships in 2017, though the event took place in early August and therefore didn't conflict with the football calendar.

However, IAAF president Sebastian Coe dismissed suggestions the World Championships might be brought forward in 2019. "I can't speculate about that. That would then be a council judgment," Coe said, per The Guardian.

"We have a pretty clear, stated position that we want our world championships to finish as the conclusion of a season. Why did we do that? Well, the reason is that, for a lot of our fans, it was confusing.

"They didn't quite know why somebody would come out of a world championships or an Olympic Games and then go: 'OK, I know they won whatever it is, in the world championships, and then four days later they're in the Diamond League final.' And particularly when you have a very cluttered sporting calendar across winter and summer sports, we just felt we needed to do everything just to make our sport a little more understandable."

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