‘Do it for this little girl’: How a photo from mum inspired Hull’s brilliant silver

For all of Australia’s record haul of gold medals at the Paris Olympics, it is Jess Hull, her luminous smile and her silver medal in the 1500 metres that best personifies Australia in these Games.

Five weeks ago, at a Diamond League meet in this very city, Hull gave the legendary Kenyan Faith Kipyegon such a race that in finishing second to her, she ran 3:50.83 – the fifth-fastest time in history.

Australian Jess Hull celebrates her silver medal.Credit: Getty Images

Suddenly, the prospect of an Olympic medal became real, even if she knew in her heart that it could only ever be silver behind Kipyegon, who that night broke her own record and now has won the 1500 in three successive Olympics.

In Australia, too, as awareness of Hull’s extraordinary run seeped into public consciousness, suddenly the Olympics seemed real and close, and the national pulse, like Hull’s, began to quicken. You could call it a soft launch.

In a lower key, Australia had been lowering itself into the starting blocks a long time before then. So had Hull. She’d already enjoyed the best season of her career, but after finishing fourth in the world indoor championships in March, she resolved to work even harder at the end of her races – literally the finishing touch.

“Back in March, when I made those changes, I was thinking I could scrape in for a bronze,” she said. “And then you run 3:50, and you have the world record holder looking over her shoulder, and you start to wonder, like, can I win gold, you know? Dad’s always told me: ‘Why not you?’”

Faith Kipyegon wins gold, with Jess Hull behind her in silver.Credit: Getty Images

Dad is Simon, a former runner who is also her coach. He introduced her to a love of athletics, encouraged her to go to college in the US, and took charge when she came home. Tousle-haired and somewhat abashed, he found himself her media co-star this night.

“She’s been building to this for 10 years, to be honest,” he said. “I think it was just her time. She had that great race in Paris, and all of a sudden, you go from an outside chance for a medal to ‘I’m medalling’, so your mindset shifts.

“I just saw this massive shift in her, especially being her coach and father; you’re right on the inside. Everyone who makes the Olympics believes they can medal, or they dream they can. She started to believe it wasn’t a dream. It was, ‘I can actually get out there and get this medal. You know, I’m going to shoot for gold’.”

Hull had said those very words to her father on Saturday afternoon. They might have been the unofficial motto for Australia’s whole Olympic team or at the very least, a tattoo. The track-and-field team has seven medals, their best return since 12 at Melbourne 1956. Hull’s silver is the first for an Australian woman on the Olympic track beyond 800 metres.

Hull has a beaming smile that somehow conveys that she means business at the same time. When her father saw it as she lined up on another heaving night at Stade de France, he was reassured – though not soothed.

The first part of the race was run at a fierce pace. Hull said that suited her. “I was happy with that,” she said. “I can go through my cues a little bit easier when it’s fast and strung out than if we’re anticipating a big move later on.”

By the bell lap, she was where she wanted to be, at Kipyegon’s shoulder. Unlike in the Diamond League race, Ethiopian Diribe Welteji and Great Britain’s Georgia Bell were thereabouts, too.

Hull said she saw the state of the race on the big screen. “I thought, ‘I’m not going home empty-handed’,” she said. “Watching Faith run away from us, but knowing the closer I was to her, the closer I was to a medal.

Nikki Hiltz (left) and Susan Lokayo Ejore congratulate Jess Hull on her silver medal.Credit: AP

“I just felt so calm. I just had to remind myself that every time I’ve asked my gears to be there this year, they have been. I had to just trust that that was gonna happen today. I knew that I was gonna get a medal. I just didn’t know what colour.”

Hull’s 3:52.56 was her second-fastest time ever and the first four runners in the race all broke the previous Olympic record. Nonetheless, as Hull spread her arms at the finish line in a justifiable gesture celebrating what you might call her winning second place, she was shocked when Bell ran into them. It was that close.

Asked if she thought she might edge Kipyegon, Hull said bluntly: “No. She’s just class above. We’re getting there, but she’s still the next level.” The preacher is nearly right: it’s Faith that conquers all.

Simon Hull saw both futility and hope. “Faith’s the greatest of all time. Three Olympics, three gold medals. We have so much respect for her,” he said.

“To even give yourself a chance against her is pretty incredible. But we ain’t giving up on it. She’s very young, she’s got a few years on Faith.” It’s less than three, but that’s a mini-generation in sport.

Simon is plotting a course for his daughter already. “I know what wins races,” he said. “You can be as fit as you like, but you have to be fast. Her top-end speed now from 12 months ago is chalk and cheese. She’s a real threat in most races, and it’ll get better, too. She’s not at [her] peak yet.

On the morning of Jessica Hull’s 1500m race, her mother sent her this photograph.Credit: Jessica Hull

“Anything could have happened today. Maybe she’s three metres closer on that bend, she’s chasing the down straight. That’s the way the racing goes.”

Mission completed, Hull collapsed in exhaustion but soon was on her feet, trying to compute what she had done. “Even just processing what Faith had just done,” she said. “She’s the triple Olympic champion here. What a night. To have been following her home in that sort of situation is incredible.”

Since falling ill at the 2022 World Championships, Hull avoids recent arrivals, even family, wherever she competes, so she had not seen her mother or brother until her victory lap.

Earlier in the day, her mother had sent her a photograph that brought tears to her eyes. It was a magazine cover featuring her, aged about 12, competing at Little Athletics. Her mother wrote: “Do it for this little girl tonight.”

“That’s all I needed to hear from her,” Hull said. She did that little girl proud, and their country, too.

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