Amy Hunt, 200m World Championship silver medallist and Cambridge graduate: ‘You can be an academic badass and a track goddess’
The 23-yer-old Britisher who suffered injuries and mental health issues and aftermath of excessive caffeine, refused to quit, and took Worlds silver after graduating from Cambridge and its Harry Potter-like dining hall's
Britain's Amy Hunt, silver medalist at the Tokyo World Athletics Championship, waves to the crowd after the women's 200 meters final. (Photo: AP) Amy Hunt was an U18 junior world record holder once. Vogue called her, “one of the faces to define the decade” after she started college at Cambridge, according to Guardian.
After winning the 200m silver at the Tokyo athletics World Championships, Hunt declared, “You can be an academic badass and a track goddess.”
Guardian quoted her as saying, “I’m showing that you can do everything, and anything, you set your mind to. You can be the best at everything.”
Hunt had torn her quadriceps that her mum needed to lift her out of the shower, as per Guardian. ‘She struggled with her mental health too, and imposter syndrome. Yet she kept finding a way back,’ the paper wrote.
In the race, she started the home straight sixth with American Melissa Jefferson-Wooden in the lead. But Hunt accelerated with 50m to go, went past compatriot Dina Asher-Smith, the 2019 world champion, then overtook Shericka Jackson, winner at the last two worlds, delegating her to bronze. Hunt took silver in 22.14.
“My mantra on the start line was ‘no fear.’ I knew I just had to be aggressive. I was with them coming off the turn then it was game on. Maybe I’m never going to be the underdog again after getting a medal. But I was just like: ‘It’s time to go hunting,” she said.
After her world under-18 record in 2019, she headed to Cambridge but UK is nothing like USA’s NCAA for sports scholars. Also she suffered as an athlete. Guardian wrote: ‘Then her world fell apart. In the first year of university she got ill, didn’t sleep because she drank too much caffeine, and found her mental and physical health deteriorating. Then she ruptured a tendon and needed surgery on her leg.’
“I really have that radical utter insane belief in myself. And my family really helped me through that and supported me, with lifting me out of the shower and redressing my wounds,” Guardian quoted.
Hunt would say Cambridge wasn’t always supportive at her English course at Corpus Christi college.
“I think Cambridge is an especially unique experience. It exists in its own crazy world with so many different random made-up words. And the dining hall is something out of Harry Potter, you’re wearing your robes and the gong sounds and you have to stand up and recite Latin. It’s an entirely different world. I considered dropping out at the end of every single year, but I knew that I couldn’t because as you can see I’m not a quitter. I’ll keep fighting every single centimetre of the track.”
What is behind this determination? “I think running so fast so young. I ran faster than these girls aged 17. I knew I was too talented for it to go to waste. I had a light inside of me that just said it’s worth it. Keep going. You truly have something.”
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