Kelly Holmes – Bio, Net Worth, Partner, Awards, Family, Age, Facts

Kelly Homles is a former British middle-distance runner who is best known for being specialized in the 800 meters and 1,500 meters events and won gold medals for both distances at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. During her career, she has set British records in numerous events and still holds the records over the 600, and 1,000-metre distances. Till 2021, she held the British 800-meter record. She began competing in middle-distance events in her youth as well as she has also joined the British Army. She turned to the professional athletics circuit in 1993. She came to public attention after she won the 1,500 m at the Commonwealth Games and took silver at the European Championships in 1994. In addition, she also won a silver and a bronze medal at the 1995 Gothenburg World Championships. She took part in her final major championship in 2004, with a double gold medal-winning performance at the Athens Olympics, finishing as the 800 m and 1,500 m Olympic Champion. She retired from athletics in 2005. Moreover, she has become a global motivational speaker, published five books, her latest being Running Life, and made a number of television appearances.

Kelly Holmes Famous For

• Being a former British middle-distance athlete.
• For winning gold medals at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.  

Where is Kelly Holmes From?

Kelly Holmes was born on 19th April 1970 in Pembury, near Royal Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England. Her birth name is Dame Kelly Holmes. She holds British nationality and her ethnicity is Mixed. She follows Christianity religion and her zodiac sign is Aries. Her present age is 52 as of 2022. She is the daughter of Derrick Holmes, a Jamaican-born car mechanic, and an English mother, Pam Norman. Her mother was 17 at the time of her birth, and seven years later she married painter and decorator Michael Norris, whom Holmes regards as her father. Focusing on her education, she attended Hildenborough CEP School, and then Hugh Christie Comprehensive School in Tonbridge from the age of 12. At the age of 12, she began training for athletics where she was coached by David Arnold. Later, she went on to win English Schools 1,500 meters in her second season in 1983. At the age of 18, she joined the British Army. In the army, she became an HGV driver in the Women’s Royal Army Corps (WRAC), later becoming a basic physical training instructor (PTI). Although militarily quite young, Holmes’s athletic prowess was impressive and she was encouraged to attend the course selection for full-time transfer to the Royal Army Physical Training Corps (RAPTC) at Aldershot. She remained in the Adjutant General’s Corps after the disbandment of the WRAC in 1992. Moreover, she became a British Army judo champion and at an athletics event, she competed in and won 800 meters, 3,000 meters, and a relay race in a single day. In addition, she also won the heptathlon. Later, she decided to return to athletics. She become a full-time athlete in 1997.

Kelly Holmes Career Timeline

• Kelly trained in 2003 for the 2004 Summer Olympics at a French training camp. There, she suffered leg injuries and was depressed, she began cutting herself. 
• “I made one cut for every day that I had been injured”, Holmes stated. 
• Later, she was diagnosed with clinical depression and she began using herbal serotonin tablets.
• After her achievement at the 2004 Summer Olympics, she chose to talk about her self-harm to show others that being a professional athlete is an extremely difficult thing to do and places the athlete under tremendous amounts of stress.
• She was considered one of the favorites for the gold medal in the 800 m along with three-time World Champion Maria de Lurdes Mutola and Čeplak. During the final, Kelly ran a well-paced race, ignoring a fast start by a number of the other competitors, and moved into the lead ahead of Mutola on the final bend, taking the gold on the line ahead of Hasna Benhassi and Čeplak, with Mutola in fourth.
• Moreover, she became the seventh British woman to win an athletics gold, and the second after Ann Packer in 1964 to win the 800 meters.
• She took the lead in the final straight, holding off World Champion Tatyana Tomashova of Russia in the final of the 1500 m becoming the third woman in history to do the 800 m and 1,500 m double (after Tatyana Kazankina of the Soviet Union in 1976 and Svetlana Masterkova of Russia in 1996), and Britain’s first double gold medallist at the same games since Albert Hill in 1920. 
• Her time of 3 minutes 57.90 seconds in the 1,500m final set a new British record for the distance.
• She was given the honor of carrying the British flag at the closing ceremony of the games, on 29 August, the day after her second victory.
• She won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2004. Winning this, she said she achieved her goals of “20 years of dreaming” as well as she asserted the award was “the biggest sporting honor your country can give you”. 
• Apart from this, she has also taken part in “On Camp with Kelly” athletics camps. 
• On 21st August 2005, she competed in her final race in the UK, the 800 m at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix meeting in Sheffield.
• On 6th December 2005, Holmes announced her retirement from athletics, saying she had reassessed her future after the death of a friend, as well as citing a lack of motivation to continue.
• In May 2009, Holmes was named as the president of Commonwealth Games England.
• She took part in the ITV game show The Cube in November 2010. 
• She appeared live on Dubai One lifestyle show Studio One in October 2011. 
• She took part in the ITV series Bear Grylls: Mission Survive in 2015 where she finished as the runner-up after a 12-day survival mission. 
• Also, she presented episode five of the BBC One television series Women at War: 100 Years of Service in 2017. 
• She spoke about her 2003 mental health issues in an episode of All in the Mind on BBC Radio 4 in 2017. 

Awards and Achievements

• In 2010, Holmes was inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame.
• In 2018, she was made honorary colonel of the Royal Armoured Corps Training Regiment.
• Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE)
• Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE)

Kelly Holmes Boyfriend: Is she Lesbian?

Kelly Holmes is not married yet and she is still to get married yet. Recently, she has publicly stated that she is a homosexual and is finally free after 34 years. She said she first came to know she was a lesbian at the age of 18 with her family knowing about her sexuality since 1997. While she is currently romantically involved with a woman, the two are not married. After she joined the Women’s Royal Army Corps in 1988, a month before her 18th birthday a fellow soldier kissed her at the bathroom block. She even dated a woman for five years when she was aged 27-32 years but broke off the relationship in 2002.  After winning two Olympic gold medals in 2004 and becoming a public figure she feared there may still be consequences from the army if she came out after leaving, and that she may be shunned within athletics, as there were no out sportspersons she knew of. LGBT+ campaigners celebrated Holmes coming out, saying that it sheds light on the historic homophobia that can still serve as a barrier to older people coming out. Currently, she is single and she is enjoying her present life happily. 

How much is Kelly Holmes’ Net Worth?

Kelly Homles is a former middle-distance athlete, as well as a TV and radio personality who has made a huge amount of money from her professional career. As of 2022, the net worth of Kelly Holmes is estimated to have $1.2 Million. In 2013 she became the face of MoneyForce, a program run by the Royal British Legion to deliver money advice to the UK armed forces. Today, her source of wealth comes from the entertainment industry. Her exact salary is in around $400 thousand at present. She is living a fancy lifestyle at present. 

How tall is Kelly Holmes?

Kelly Homles is a beautiful lady with a glowing face and a charming smile. She stands at the perfect height of 1.64 m or 5 feet 5 inches with a bodyweight of 55 KG or 121 lbs. Her hair color is blonde and her eye color is dark brown. Her body size is 34-28-40 inches. Her bra cup size is 34C. Her body type is athletic.