British champ Amy Hunt lights up track & field, thrashing legend Keely Hodgkinson
INTERVIEW: 23-year-old Amy Hunt stunned the world when she won 200m silver in the World Athletics Championships last year. Six months on her life is very different but amid the whirl of red carpets she remains fixated on reaching the top - and breaking down barriers for those coming through the ranks
Driving a McLaren F1 simulator, attending red carpets and film premieres, and staying in a luxury hotel suite once visited by Amy Winehouse: British sprinter Amy Hunt’s life has changed immeasurably since she broke into the mainstream with an astonishing world silver medal in Tokyo last September. But the 23-year-old is keen to keep her feet on the ground (or more appropriately, on the track) despite her rising profile. Having rejected numerous opportunities, from attending the Peaky Blinders premiere to London Fashion Week, in order to focus on training, she tells The Independent and other outlets: “I don't really say no with too much sadness.
This is my job and this is what I truly love to do, and I am so in love with the life that I created. I'm so focused on upgrading that silver into a gold that it doesn't really feel like a sacrifice. ” For some the name Amy Hunt may be familiar from seven years ago, when she exploded onto the scene for the first time.
She set an under-18 world record over 200m and looked like the next star in the making, before a series of injuries, including a quadriceps rupture that left her needing help getting in and out of the shower, crippled her early senior career. After several difficult years mentally and physically she has rebuilt her fitness and stamped her authority on the world stage, beating two-time defending champion Shericka Jackson in Tokyo and not content with stopping there. The Cambridge graduate is a bubbly, good-natured, thoughtful personality, equally confident in front of a camera – she started a YouTube channel after the world championships and films all her own content, with her best friend Sally editing – and chatting to the media.
She returns to action in the 60m at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Torun, Poland, this week, an event she freely admits she has a “love-hate relationship” with. She ranks it her worst of the three sprint distances but after completely reinventing her block start this year and running a 7. 04s says they are now “happily married”.
Continue to the original source for the full article.