The Prince of Wales shared an update on his daughter Princess Charlotte’s passion for sports on Tuesday – and who better to share the news with than a Team GB athlete?
Prince William, 42, spoke with Olympic middle-distance runner, Keely Hodgkinson, 23, during her investiture at Windsor Castle, revealing that his daughter is too a keen runner.
“The prince told me his daughter is doing the 400m at the minute and the hurdles and that she did watch me in Paris,” Keely said afterwards. “He told me that he remembers me winning and that he wished he could be there to see it himself.”
William referred to his absence from the Olympic tournaments caused by concerns about potentially exposing his wife, the Princess of Wales, 43, to COVID-19 while she was undergoing preventative chemotherapy for cancer.
The revelation came after Keely was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) after winning gold in the 800m at the Paris Olympics and being named Sports Personality of the Year in 2024.
The Sporty Princess
It is not the first time 10-year-old Princess Charlotte’s sporting interests have been a topic of conversation during her father’s public outings. In 2022, William visited St George’s Park – the England Lionesses training ground in Burton-on-Trent. “Charlotte wanted me to tell you that she’s really good in goal. She said, ‘Please tell them that’,” William said, addressing England women’s football team captain, Leah Williamson. “Budding star for the future!”
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Meanwhile, an outing from Charlotte’s mother Catherine revealed their shared love of netball. “She said she had been teaching her daughter how to shoot in netball, but younger people have the net lower, so it’s actually very different — she’s still got it!,” champion netball player Ama Agbeze said of the Princess of Wales following her visit to the Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre in 2023.
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Runs in the Family
During an appearance on the sporting podcast The Good, The Bad & The Rugby hosted by Mike Tindall, the husband of William’s cousin Zara, and his former England rugby teammate James Haskell in 2022, William and Catherine revealed they both boast a sporty streak.
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“I can always remember being physical, using our bodies, whether it’s walking, climbing the lake district, in Scotland [or] swimming from a young age,” Catherine said of her sport-centred upbringing before touching on her and William’s competitive side, best illustrated in how they have “never finished a tennis match”.
“It becomes a mental challenge between the two of us,” the princess joked.
