Amy Hunt Wins Historic Four Golds at European Championships in Birmingham

Amy Hunt closed out the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham on Sunday with a feat no British athlete has ever pulled off: four gold medals at a single edition of the meet.

Hunt, 24, won the 100m and 200m individually, then added the women's 4x100m relay and the mixed 4x100m relay to complete the sweep, according to the BBC and the Telegraph. The mixed relay title, secured Sunday, was the one that made it official.

She didn't win quietly. After the 200m victory on Thursday, Hunt turned to the nearest camera and shouted "Are you not entertained?" a line lifted straight from Russell Crowe's Gladiator, according to the Guardian and the Irish Mirror. She used it again after later wins, turning it into the unofficial slogan of her week.

The numbers back up the performance. Hunt ran the 100m in exactly 11.00 seconds and the 200m in 22.19 seconds, according to the Telegraph and the BBC. In the 200m final, she beat Ireland's Rhasidat Adeleke, who set a new Irish national record at 22.28, and two-time champion Dina Asher-Smith, who took bronze, per the Guardian. The 200m final drew 20,082 spectators at Alexander Stadium, the largest crowd of the championships, according to the Irish Mirror and the Surrey Comet.

Hunt has spent much of this year fighting a genuine health problem, not just competitive nerves.

"I've had a lot of health things going on this year, some really low blood pressure, and it's meant the 200s have been really scary," Hunt said, according to the BBC and the Irish Mirror. "I've been nearly fainting after a lot of my 200s this year, so I just had to go into that one and get on the bend and be really brave."

Low blood pressure severe enough to cause near-fainting during max-effort sprinting is a legitimate competitive risk. Hunt was managing it on the biggest stage of her career in front of a home crowd without a medical pass or lowered expectations. She just ran through it and won anyway.

Hunt's path here wasn't a straight line. Seven years ago, at 17, she broke the under-18 women's 200m world record and the British under-20 record, running faster than her own childhood idols at that age, according to the BBC. She was named one of Vogue's "faces to define the decade" and thrust into a celebrity circuit alongside actors like Jacob Elordi.

Then came the setbacks. An indoor meeting against Jamaica's Elaine Thompson-Herah in 2022 ended with Hunt unable to walk off the track, a scan later showing a full rupture, according to the BBC. It took her six years to beat the time she'd run as a 17-year-old.

She also did it while finishing an English Literature degree at Cambridge, something she's pointed to directly, telling reporters she wanted to prove she could be "an academic badass and a track goddess," according to the BBC.

Her technical edge, according to former European and world champion sprinter Adam Gemili, comes from an unusual combination for her height. At 5ft 11in, Hunt is tall for a sprinter, which slows her out of the blocks but gives her a stride length Gemili estimated at 220-230cm once she's at full speed, comparing her favorably to Elaine Thompson and Shericka Jackson, according to the Telegraph.

Lord Coe, watching from the stands at Alexander Stadium, offered his own read after her 100m-200m double. "The world at this level breaks down into two groups, those who would rather be anywhere else in the big moment and those who wear it. And she looks like she enjoys the arena," according to the Telegraph.

The Guardian's coverage also noted a separate milestone from the same championships: Ireland's Mark English won the 800m, delivering the country's first men's European championship gold in 92 years. English, a 33-year-old doctor from Donegal, said afterward he'd have to rebook a 6 a.m. flight to Sierra Nevada he'd planned before the win changed his priorities.

Hunt is now considered a frontrunner for BBC Sports Personality of the Year, according to the BBC. Her next major test will be whether she can carry this form into next year's outdoor season, and whether the blood pressure issue that shadowed her 200m races this year gets a clearer diagnosis before then.