TOKYO -- There's a very real argument to be made Jess Hull is the least celebrated of any star Australian athlete. If not for literally the most decorated 1500m runner in the history of athletics, Hull would be an Olympic champion on the track and a national icon off it, one that would rival any sporting great that's ever emerged from Down Under.
Now I know what you're thinking: if my grandmother had wheels etc, but please hear me out for a moment. Hull's career achievement includes far more than just that scintillating run on a balmy night at the Stade de France 13 months ago, and yet much of it continues to be routinely glossed over by both the domestic sporting media and the Australian public.
Did you know Hull is the world record holder over 2000m?
Did you know Hull is a four-time national champion that owns Australian records in the 1000m, 1500m, mile, road mile, and 2000m?
Did you know Hull is one of just two women in history -- not just Australian women -- to post a sub-1:58.60 in the 800m, a sub-2:31 in the 1000m, and a sub-3:51 in the 1500m?
And did you know it's Hull who has been one of the major drivers behind Faith Kipyegon's surge to unprecedented, unfathomable heights? The 31-year-old Kenyan has won a simply mind-boggling three consecutive Olympic titles in the 1500m, is a four-time world champion across the 1500m and 3000m distances, owns eight of the 15 fastest times ever record over the four-lap event, and is showing no sign of slowing down anytime soon.
In every major race Kipyegon has contested in recent years, the perennially smiley Hull has been there running shotgun and pushing her all the way to the finish line. A month before winning silver behind Kipyegon at the Olympic Games last summer, Hull posted an Australian record 3:50.83 in another runner-up performance at the Diamond League meet in Paris. She was back on the podium at the event in Brussels to close the season, as Kipyegon yet again took out the race.
Earlier this year, Kipyegon shattered her own world record in the 1500m with a blistering time of 3:48.68 at the Diamond League meeting in Oregon. By her side for much of it? Hull, who settled for third place after being pipped on the final lap by Ethiopia's Diribe Welteji.
"It's pretty impressive what Faith can do," beams Hull. "She's set the benchmark now of where we need to be. She's raised the bar so high that we've had no choice but to get better. It's been really cool to be part of the sport while she's been in it."
The Australian will set her sights on the audacious task of upsetting Kipyegon when the pair race for gold in the 1500m on Tuesday evening at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. Welteji won't be there, however, having been barred from competition amid a legal dispute over an alleged missed drugs test.
In the semifinals on Sunday evening, Hull finished just 0.01s behind Kenya's Nelly Chepchirchir in an oddly slow race that saw the leaders finish some 15 seconds adrift of their personal bests. Minutes earlier, Kipyegon had controlled the first semifinal.
The world championships is a stage that hasn't showcased the best of Hull to this point of her career. At the 2019 meet in Doha, Hull missed out on a place in the 1500m final, before settling for seventh place finishes in both Eugene (2022) and Budapest (2023). But the Australian knows she's a completely different runner to the one that competed back then. She's grown. She's stronger. She's far more confident.
"The important thing for me has been to learn how to win races and set myself up for gold," says Hull. "If you miss the win, you still want to be among the medallists. Every last rep in training, every final 200m, I remind myself this is for gold."
Timing is everything in life, and it's no different in sports. Instead of competing against the greatest to ever do it, and maybe the greatest who will ever do it, in another era, Hull would be the undoubted face of Australian athletics. Who knows, maybe the face of Australian sport.
That's no hyperbole. Ask 100 Australians to name the nation's greatest sporting moment of the past 30 years and you can be sure at least 70 of them will nominate Cathy Freeman's 400m Olympic triumph in Sydney. Fair enough, too! Australians love to revel in sporting greatness on the track where traditionally so few athletes representing the country have been able to compete against the world's best.
But Hull is doing much more than simply competing, she's staking her claim as her nation's greatest pure athlete and pushing the GOAT of her discipline to extraordinary, unprecedented heights.