Amy Hunt celebrated her historic haul of four gold medals at the European Championships in Birmingham with a glass of champagne and a KFC, as well as a 2am massage to ensure her legs would be fresh for her next race in Lausanne on Friday. She went to bed at 4am and, despite being on four hours sleep on Monday morning, was sharp as a tack as she explained why being bold is good for her – and her sport.
Bold ambitions
Long before Hunt catapulted herself into the mainstream by winning an unprecedented four golds, she was remarkably upfront about her ambitions. There was no coyness. No equivocation. She wanted the quadruple in Birmingham. And having talked a good game, she delivered.
“Sometimes people are a bit afraid of voicing their ambitions,” Hunt says. “But life is short. Why not be ambitious? We’re all thinking these things, so why not just say them out loud? People are attracted to that no-facade, full-confidence, full-throttle way of speaking. It’s something we have in other sports. If you’re going into a Wimbledon final, it’s obviously clear that you want to win.”
Confidence on the start line
Hunt believes it also helps her when it comes to the crunch in races. “Especially in the sprints, you have to be so utterly confident on that start line. It’s like nothing else on this planet. I’m trying to get from A to B as fast as humanly possible, and it’s so simple yet complex,” she says. “I have to be so utterly convinced of myself, my own power, my own strength, my own speed, and my own methodology, in a sense, to be able to make that all kind of come together as one. Because it is such a mental game. And just having that edge of confidence of 1 or 2% matters.”
Hunt is a very modern British sports star, equally comfortable talking about studying Chaucer and the Material Renaissance at Cambridge on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, as she did on Monday, as she is posting a video on Instagram of her twirling with her four gold medals to the sound of Abba’s Winner Takes It All.
Celebration and impact
“I had a glass of champagne and a KFC and it was amazing,” she says. “It was one of the best tasting KFCs I’ve had in my life. Then we went and had a massage at 2am, and then I got into bed finally at 4am with a not-packed suitcase.”
Advertisers talk about how the biggest stars are able to appeal to all four quadrants – young and old, men and women. And after her four European golds, Hunt is closing in on being a four-quadrant star. She is smart but normal, exceptionally talented but down to earth. And she does the numbers too. When Hunt won her first gold medal over 100m last Monday, two million people watched on the BBC. On Sunday, when she completed the quadruple, 4.2 million were tuned in. She says her number of social media followers has doubled in a week too.
And how appropriate is it that someone who has a passion for the Renaissance has been so instrumental to the rebirth of track and field in Britain? “We’ve seen from these Champs that the public really love track and field,” Hunt says. “Athletics is coming back with a bit of swagger.”
Team praise and future challenges
But that swagger carries a lot of self-awareness too. After she won her third gold medal in the women’s 4x100m relay, the first thing she did was praise her teammates. Dina Asher-Smith was hailed for breaking the record for European Championships medals. Success Eduan was praised for being a midwife as well as a top sprinter. And Hunt also marvelled at how Imani-Lara Lansiquot had written an acclaimed play, Armour of Gaza, about growing up in Peckham.
Hunt knows she is now about to experience a whole new level of fame. But there is a caveat – living in Padua, in northern Italy, means she will escape the worst excesses of the tabloids. “I am probably going to give Keely Hodgkinson a little text to see how she manages it, but it’s definitely not something I shy away from,” says Hunt. “I’m not scared of it at all. It’s a privilege to be famous as a track person. But it’s also quite lucky for me that I have such a secluded setup.”
The difficult times in her life, including challenges with her mental health while at Cambridge and several injuries after she burst to prominence as an 18-year-old, have also given her perspective. “Failure is something you can’t be afraid of,” she says. “My whole persona, my whole message and ethos and everything is just to be bold. And failure is a natural part of that.” Even this year Hunt has had to battle low blood pressure which has caused her to nearly faint. “Obviously, this year I’ve struggled with my health and there’s been races that have felt like failures,” she says. “But if you don’t fail, then you don’t win. It’s a natural part of a sportsperson’s life. It’s sad, but necessary.”
Hunt is currently ranked fifth in the world over 200m and eighth in the 100m. She knows she needs to get faster to beat the Americans Gabby Thomas and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, and the St Lucian star Julien Alfred at next year’s world championships. But as she talks with scientific precision about her plans to improve her 60m speed, so she can be quicker round the bend in the 200m and be in the mix for the Olympics, you are reminded that she has a habit of manifesting medals.
Unsurprisingly, Hunt is also now the overwhelming favourite for sports personality of the year, well ahead of fellow athlete Josh Kerr, and the England footballers Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham. “I think it just speaks to the resurgence and reignition of track and field in 2026,” she says. “It’s been amazing to see the public fall back in love with us, and be in people’s minds and hearts.”
