Jess Hull eyeing LA 2028 gold after Paris Olympic Games 1500m silver

Fresh off becoming the only Australian woman to win an Olympic medal in the 1500m, Jess Hull’s team believes she can only get better.

Jessica Hull will celebrate her Olympic silver medal with Taylor Swift.

After barely 45 minutes sleep following her 1500m heroics, Hull revealed plans to let her hair down with her favourite singer in London at Wembley Stadium next week.

She booked the tickets a month ago as she had a sneaking suspicion there would be something to celebrate.

“We’re going to Wembley on Thursday and that should be pretty cool,” Hull said. “I have been a Swiftie for a long time, I’m a hard core Swiftie. I saw her way back when she did the Red Tour in 2012. “I’m so glad we planned something fun to do.”

Wall-to-wall media commitments on Sunday meant Hull had to delay catching up with her mother and brother, who she’d only seen briefly during her victory lap.

Australian 1500m silver medallist Jess Hull is set to celebrate her success with a Taylor Swift concert. Picture: Michael Klein

After the family celebration and some Paris sightseeing she will head to London to plan her next few weeks, which will culminate in competing in the Diamond League final in Brussels.

Hull has watched the Olympic final back a few times and wouldn’t change a thing, despite being caught out of position a couple of times which allowed defending champion Faith Kipyego to slip away and win again.

Jess Hull is off to see Taylor Swift. Picture: Julien de Rosa / AFP

“I don’t think Faith was beatable,” she said. “So coming runner-up to her was as good as I could have been. I was thinking back to how calm I was in the moment, I was never stressed.

“When I watched the race back, I was like, there were times where I would be like, ‘Oh my positioning was a bit dodgy there’, but I never felt that in the moment.

“I was pretty relaxed and just so confident in what I was doing. It just became second nature.”

Her father and coach, Simon, is certainly already looking ahead to the next chapter and bringing down the great Kenyan.

Hull is the first Australia’s woman to win an Olympic medal in the 1500m event. Picture: Michael Klein

The fact it took the greatest female 1500m runner in history to beat the Australian was a point her camp kept coming back to. Kipyeon won her third consecutive Olympic title in Paris at the age of 30. Hull is 27 and, according to her father, only going to get better.

“Twelve months ago no one was getting in the same stratosphere as Faith and then all of a sudden, you’re there,” Simon said. “She can’t beat her just yet but it gives you hope that if you keep working and you have your day, then anything can happen.

“Jess has so much respect for her so to be even in the conversation, even giving yourself a chance against her is pretty incredible. But we aren’t giving up on it, she’s got a few years on Faith.”

And Faith herself has played a role in Jess’s success. “It’s just really cool to have been a part of the sport while she’s been in it,” Jess said. “Because she really has made the 1500 like a family for these women. She’s been on such a different level that I think all of us have had to kind of band together and be like, all right, how are we going to catch her?

Hull’s standing amongst competitors was obvious when they were all visibly thrilled for her silver medal win. Picture: Michael Klein

“She’s also like encouraged us to, to get better and kind of like she raised the bar so high that we kind of had no choice but to get better.”

An Australian woman had never won a medal at an Olympic Games in the 1500m before and you have to go back to 1960 on the men’s side where the great Herb Elliott won gold in Rome.

The impact this result will have down the track is what excites Athletics Australia’s high performance manager Andrew Faichney.

“It was the first middle-distance track medal 1968 (Ralph Doublell 800m gold Mexico) so I mean that in itself, says a hell of a lot,” he said. “They’re bloody hard to win and we’ve now got a silver medallist in the 1500. It’s pretty bloody amazing to be able to win a medal in that event, to take on the whole world and come out as a silver medal.

Jessica Hull’s team believe her ability will only grow. Picture: Michael Klein

“To run the time that she did, backed up over the last few weeks, and all the work that Simon and her put into getting from the Olympic final in Tokyo to now winning a silver medal is just incredible.”

Australia’s track team had its second best performance in history in Paris winning seven medals, only behind 12 in Melbourne in 1956.

“You see what Jess did coming into this environment, this big stage and they just own it,” Faichney said. “We had this group of athletes who did that and it is a massive difference from where we were six or seven years ago. It’s so exciting for the future and the next wave to see these athletes walk into that cauldron and own the place, and deliver on a medal that they expected.”

Hull’s brilliant season included lowering her national record by more than five seconds last month at the Paris Diamond League when she pushed Kipyegon in a world-record breaking race. She backed that up five days later to set a 2000m world record.

These incredible efforts by the girl from Wollongong caught the eye of one of the great Olympic runners, Sebastian Coe, the president of World Athletics.

“It was one of the great performances,” Coe said. “She’s matured as an athlete, she’s mentally
mahogany-hard, and she knows she’s got a potential I don’t think she’s even begun to tap.”

Originally published as Jess Hull eyeing LA 2028 gold after Paris Olympic Games 1500m silver