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\u2018I<\/span> grew up and was always just good at running,\u201d says Georgia Hunter Bell, as she remembers the moment she felt her career was over at 23. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n At that stage Hunter Bell\u2019s body was broken. Her teenage promise \u2013 she was the UK\u2019s top 15-year-old having run a 2:08 min 800m \u2013 worn away by injuries aggravated by overtraining in the US collegiate system. She retired; found a job in tech; didn\u2019t run on the track for five years. And then came a comeback straight out of a Hollywood feel-good movie.<\/p>\n Over the past two years, the 32-year-old has won six major medals \u2013 including an Olympic 1500m bronze, world 800m silver and world 800m indoor and Commonwealth golds<\/a>. And this week she arrives at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham as Britain\u2019s hottest favourite for gold.<\/p>\n But to understand Hunter Bell\u2019s immense drive and fortitude \u2013 and what has made her the athlete she is today \u2013 you have to go back to the dark days, when her youthful dreams were struck down by life\u2019s harsh realities.<\/p>\n \u201cActually the first year that I quit, I was like: \u2018Thank God, I\u2019m done\u2019,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause 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.<\/p>\n \u201cBut a year or two later, when I was back in London and getting the tube to work, I was just kind of being like, \u2018Oh my God, I am an adult now. This is it. And I have kind of messed up my life\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew that the potential was there and it was never fulfilled, and I really struggled to deal with that,\u201d she adds. \u201cAnd there were a few bad years where I wasn\u2019t very excited for life.\u201d<\/p>\n She admits that the 23-year-old Georgia was a little lost. \u201cWhen I look back, I feel really bad for her,\u201d she adds. \u201cBut that is now part of my strength. Because I\u2019ve been through all of that, I have that perspective, and it makes me a way better athlete.\u201d<\/p>\n 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<\/a> in Paris.<\/p>\n