‘I grew up and was always just good at running,” says Georgia Hunter Bell, as she remembers the moment she felt her career was over at 23. “I always thought that I would be a professional athlete, go to the Olympics, all of that. So it was quite brutal when I had to make peace with the fact that it was not going to happen.”
At that stage Hunter Bell’s body was broken. Her teenage promise – she was the UK’s top 15-year-old having run a 2:08 min 800m – worn away by injuries aggravated by overtraining in the US collegiate system. She retired; found a job in tech; didn’t run on the track for five years. And then came a comeback straight out of a Hollywood feel-good movie.
Over the past two years, the 32-year-old has won six major medals – including an Olympic 1500m bronze, world 800m silver and world 800m indoor and Commonwealth golds. And this week she arrives at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham as Britain’s hottest favourite for gold.
But to understand Hunter Bell’s immense drive and fortitude – and what has made her the athlete she is today – you have to go back to the dark days, when her youthful dreams were struck down by life’s harsh realities.
“Actually the first year that I quit, I was like: ‘Thank God, I’m done’,” she says. “Because it had got quite sour towards the end. I was resenting it. I was racing badly. I was injured. I was completely falling out of love with it.
“But a year or two later, when I was back in London and getting the tube to work, I was just kind of being like, ‘Oh my God, I am an adult now. This is it. And I have kind of messed up my life’.
“I knew that the potential was there and it was never fulfilled, and I really struggled to deal with that,” she adds. “And there were a few bad years where I wasn’t very excited for life.”
She admits that the 23-year-old Georgia was a little lost. “When I look back, I feel really bad for her,” she adds. “But that is now part of my strength. Because I’ve been through all of that, I have that perspective, and it makes me a way better athlete.”
The second-chance journey of a lifetime began with a park run for fun in the pandemic in a not-too-shabby time of 16min 34sec. Then, in November 2022, she reunited with her old coach Trevor Painter and his wife, Jenny Meadows, who guided Keely Hodgkinson to Olympic gold in Paris.
The world duathlon title followed in 2023 along with a 1500m in 4:06, just four seconds off the Olympic qualifying time. That winter she also went on her first altitude camp, when Painter and Meadows realised they had an unpolished diamond on their hands.
“They really made me believe,” she says. “They were looking at me keeping up with everyone. After one hill session, Jen pulled me in and was like, ‘You can run the Olympic qualifying time’ and that’s when I was like, ‘OK, I am going do this’. Then it went from ‘you can run the time’ to ‘you can make the team’ to ‘you can actually get a medal’.
Meadows’ prophecy turned into reality. Days before her 30th birthday Hunter Bell was able to quit her job to become a professional athlete. “Obviously they were a bit sad to see me go,” she says. “But they were like: ‘You’re living your dream. And to get another shot is so exciting’.”
And even at 32, Hunter Bell is still getting better.
This year, she is the second- fastest woman in the world, over 1500m, and the fifth-fastest over 800m. “It’s difficult deciding which to do because I feel like I’m actually pretty equal in both,” she says.
Her coaches can’t decide either. “Jen thinks there’s a lot more potential in the 800m, and then Trev thinks I have a better aerobic base, which is maybe suited for the 1500m a bit more,” she says smiling.
What is clear is that she can beat anyone at either distance – as she proved by thrashing the 800m world champion Lilian Odira at the Commonwealth Games in a tactical masterclass.
For the first part of the race she went to the front and kept it steady. But with Odira out of position on the back straight of the second lap she struck for home, blitzing the last 200m in 27 seconds. “Jen and I watched the rounds,” Hunter Bell explains. “And we anticipated what we thought she might do.”
Beating Odira proved something else too: she could handle the pressure of expectancy. “I used to relish being the underdog in 2024,” she says. “But I found it quite a hard adjustment to be favourite. Last year I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t love this: people are asking me to do press conferences, people are asking me how I’m going to win’. And I made some mistakes in 2025, which were really important to learn from.”
Gold medals over 1500m at the world indoors in Torun and the 800m at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow showed Hunter Bell is a fast learner. And, unsurprisingly, she goes into the Europeans as a hot favourite to win the 1500m, with only the French athlete Agathe Guillemot, the sixth fastest in the world this year, looking a danger.
So what has allowed her to keep improving? Hunter Bell is full of praise for Painter and Meadows, whose coaching focuses on high-speed efforts on the track – with little time for slow running. On weekends, for instance, she rides her bike for hours rather than doing a long run.
She also emphasises the importance of recovery. “You have to be quite disciplined with what you do in your spare time,” she says. “You’re almost trying to be horizontal for as much as you can during the day. When you’re not training or racing, you’re chilling out and letting your body recover.”
Training with Hodgkinson certainly doesn’t hurt either. So what has she learned most from the 800m Olympic champion?
“That’s a good question,” she says. “We’re at different phases in our life, but we get on really well. She’s very chilled, which I’ve really learned from.
“At college, I would be very regimented. If something went wrong, I felt that everything had gone wrong. Whereas she’s very like: ‘Oh, I forgot my spikes. I’ll get some others.’ She goes with the flow and is very composed when she gets on the start line. She also really relaxes me, and she’s quite playful and fun.”
And what has she learned from you? “I would be interested to hear what she would say,” she laughs. “Maybe because I have achieved something that on paper you wouldn’t think is possible, that’s helped her see that you can actually do anything? And maybe I’ve helped her be on time more. I’m always like, you need to go!”
For now, Birmingham is foremost on her mind. But Hunter Bell admits that she wants to emulate Kelly Holmes by going for an 800m/1500m double at the Los Angeles Olympics.
She even talked with Holmes about attempting it last year at the world championships in Tokyo, before deciding against it. However she believes it is a harder feat to achieve in the modern era – because there are so few slow races in the heats.
“The idea of me winning a gold in the 800 and 1500 in LA is kind of unthinkable because the races are so quick, and what they demand from your body is so much,” she says. “They are almost flat out sprints always, whereas they used to be a bit more tactical.
“That’s why I really enjoyed running a tactical 800m at the Commonwealth Games. Because, last year in Tokyo, it was balls to the wall from the gun.”
But given what she has achieved so far, would you dare bet against Hunter Bell defying sporting gravity again? Especially as she believes there is plenty left in her tank.
“I think my training age is a lot younger than 32, just because I didn’t have all those years of racing and being on the circuit,” she says. “Remember Kelly did her double Olympic gold at 34. Look at Messi at 39. What’s previously been seen as old has pushed way back.
“So everything is leading towards LA – that’s the north star.” And, like Hunter Bell, it is shining brighter than ever.