Amy Hunt completes four golds as Britain win mixed 4x100m at European Championships
Amy Hunt claimed her fourth European gold when Great Britain won the mixed 4x100m relay at the European Championships in Birmingham on Sunday, completing four continental titles in seven days on home soil.
Hunt first made headlines aged 17 at a meet in Germany when she ran 22.42 seconds to break the under-18 women's world record and the British under-20 record, an achievement that came three months before Dina Asher-Smith won a world title. The following year Vogue named her one of the "faces to define the decade" and she appeared at events alongside film and music stars, travelling from her hometown of Newark to join higher-profile guests such as Jacob Elordi. Hunt combined athletics with an English Literature degree at Cambridge University and has spoken about proving that you can be "an academic badass and a track goddess".
Her pathway to this week was interrupted by a serious injury in 2022 after an indoor meeting in Birmingham with Elaine Thompson-Herah: Hunt left the event unable to walk and scans showed a fully ruptured tendon in her quadriceps, leading to surgery and a recovery that left her watching the Commonwealth Games on crutches. She completed her university year rather than postpone it and went on to win an Olympic 4x100m relay silver medal and then her first individual global medal in Tokyo in 2025. Hunt later moved to Padua to train under coach Marco Airale.
At Alexander Stadium she opened the championships with 100m gold and completed an individual sprint double before helping Britain to mixed 4x100m victory on Sunday, an unprecedented haul she had publicly targeted by saying she wanted to become "iconic". After completing the double she shouted "Are you not entertained?!" at a television camera, and she is now being mentioned among the frontrunners for BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Hunt confirmed her long-term ambitions by saying "wants it all" prior to the championships.
Technically, Hunt remains focused on improving her start despite standing almost 6ft tall and possessing notable top-end speed; she lowered her 60m best this season to 7.04 seconds, the eighth-fastest worldwide this year, and she broke the 11-second barrier in the 100m for the first time in the same season. Her 200m personal best of 22.08 has been a strong suit, but she has also struggled this year with episodes of low blood pressure on longer efforts — including a near-fainting episode when she finished fifth at the London Diamond League in July — which has required measures such as electrolytes and cold towels. She nonetheless held off Dina Asher-Smith and Ireland's Rhasidat Adeleke to win the European 200m title.
Former world 110m hurdles champion Colin Jackson assessed Hunt's targets and strengths, saying: "To win a global 100m nowadays, you have to run around the 10.75-second mark. Amy knows that's what she has to work towards and improving her start will get her towards that." He added: "If she wants to win the 200m, she has to be around the 21.7, 21.8-second mark, and I think she's really capable of doing that. I think she would look at her performances and think that she can do that. She's not far away." Asher-Smith's British records of 21.88 and 10.83 seconds, set in 2019, remain intact, while Hunt ranks 14th-fastest worldwide in the 200m and 25th in the 100m this year.
Hunt reflected on the achievement after the mixed relay, saying: "Four golds was the dream and perhaps dreams do come true. It's so beyond the bounds of my dreams that I'm just euphoric. I can't believe it's happening. I think it will sink in later, maybe on the podium. I'm just so proud of myself and the way I've handled this week." Her next opportunities for global honours, the article notes, include the inaugural World Ultimate Championships in September and next year's World Championships in Beijing.