Amy Hunt is looking forward to Torun
Academic badass, Amy Hunt, will go into the World Indoors 60m full of confidence, having run a PR 7.04 in the same Torun Arena last month as well as setting a new national record of 6.20 for 50 meters, also last month. Last year she came 5th and 6th in the European and World Indoors as well as taking silver at 200m in the World (outdoor) Champs in Tokyo.
Meeting GB athletics writers this week, she was happy to talk about her hopes for Torun: “I came fifth last year, so in my mind, that is the benchmark. I can’t be going to a champs the year after and doing worse! So, I’m aiming to at least equal, if not better, my result last year just The 60 is so different to the 200 and I’m coming into this as someone who’s more of a well-rounded sprinter as opposed to a pure 60 specialist. I also think the 60 is always one those things where sometimes there’s a lot more luck that plays into it than you would like to think. But I’m really excited for it and it’s cool to be going into something actually ranked in the top five for once, which means that I don’t sound as crazy when I’m saying I’m going to do well.
“I think the jump from 7:09 to 7:04 was actually quite big. And even though we knew we were capable of it, it was interesting that it came outside the championships – because usually, I tend to run my PBs during big championship races. So it was interesting that it came in a somewhat non-pressurized meet. So it’s exciting for us as we head into this weekend. Surprisingly, we’ve changed it my entire 60 throughout the course of this indoor season. We’ve been really, really technically working on it, stride length, block settings, we changed absolutely everything. So it would be really fun to be able to put those together”.
Amy is based in Padua, Northern Italy, and is coached by Marco Airale, originally part of a group that included Darryl Neita, Jeremiah Azu, and Adam Gemili. She stayed when the others left. Having studied Renaissance culture as part of her Cambridge English Literature degree, she loves being in Italy and often spends her days off at museums or art galleries.
I took the opportunity to ask her where the 60 meters fitted into her ambitions alongside 100 and 200. She told me, “This is the funniest thing, but going strictly off all-time rankings, I’m technically the best at 60, which is absolutely insane. I think I’m ranked 40th all-time in the 60, but obviously, there are so many factors that go into it. But I would say they kind of go in descending order. So I would rank them 200, then 100, then 60, just because, like I said earlier, the 60 can be so fickle. Sometimes it can go so amazingly, and sometimes you just don’t get that reaction, and then that is game over. So the 60 is sort of a love-hate relationship. But this year we’ve been happily married, but we’ll see. We’ve got a couple more dances to go together, and then we’ll find out. I really love being such a versatile sprinter. I think it’s such an important thing to be able to do. All of the sprinting greats – Usain, Allyson, Daphne, Tori Bowie, everyone who is truly the best at these events, did all of them, and are not afraid to put themselves in positions where they’re maybe not the favorite to win. So I think for me, doing the 60 is more just being entirely fearless and entirely kind of confident in myself”.
In a live-TV interview after the Tokyo silver medal, Amy described herself as “an academic bad ass and a track goddess”. Asked about that memorable phrase, she explained that it was spontaneous and that her immediate reaction was: “’ I’m on the BBC, can I even say that? I was even like, are they going to bleep that out?’ Straight after a race, you head up to those TV interviews, it is always quite a disorientating experience, because you don’t know what you’re going to find. There are all these bright lights. You’ve got to climb up these stairs, and you’re out of breath. And people are asking you about the race, and you haven’t even had a chance to watch it back. So what you think might have happened is so completely different from theactual picture of what happened. But I was so incredibly high with the adrenaline and endorphins. That time there wasn’t that connection between my brain and my mouth”.
Amy Hunt is a great athlete, but she’s also an exceptionally nice person. She gave me a one-to-one interview in Paris last year, telling me she could only spare 20 minutes. 35 minutes later, she was still talking. This week’s series of UK Athletics press points typically lasts 20 minutes. Amy gave us 43 minutes and answered every question thoroughly.
See more of Amy on her YouTube channel
