IAAF World Indoor Championships 2026: Amy Hunt on empowering female athletes

Hunt’s astonishing run to a world silver medal came six years after she alerted the world to her potential as a record-breaking junior.

But in between those key moments, injuries derailed the start of her career – including a torn quadriceps in 2022 – while she tried to manage an often frictional relationship between her sporting ambition and her studies.

Hunt – who broke the under-18 200m world record in 2019 – did not improve on her 22.42s until last summer, before going even faster with a 22.08s in Japan at the end of the season where she also set personal bests in the 60m and 100m.

Hunt has continued her development under coach Marco Aerali in the northern Italian city of Padova, and Hunt’s immediate goal is to improve on her fifth-place finish at the World Indoor Championships last year.

The 60-meter dash is her least favorite event — her 5-foot-10-inch (1.78-meter) frame makes getting out of the blocks a challenge quickly — but it’s a focus necessary to benefit her performance over longer distances.

In the longer term, she hopes to become a 400m competitor as part of her bid to win as many as four Olympic medals in 2028, an achievement that, she says, will make her an “icon”.

But away from the track, Hunt is also keen to ensure she does her part in encouraging more athletes to pursue their studies by creating a scholarship, similar to British rapper Stormzy’s initiative to support black students studying at Cambridge.

“I didn’t want to take the easy way out. That’s not who I am and that doesn’t inform anything I do. I always have to try to be my best every day,” Hunt says.

“Talking about it opens things up and enables more women and girls from a sporting background to get there.

“It’s about having a conversation and helping them be more confident.”