In an exclusive interview with AW, the Olympic medallist and 1500m British record-holder talks about a trip to Germany that made all the difference
Georgia Bell loves to race and has done so no fewer than 27 times during 2024 – a year in which she has destroyed her personal bests, won Olympic and European medals and become the British 1500m record-holder.
However, it is her second outing of the year – at the Sparkassen Indoor Meeting Dortmund on January 20 – that the 30-year-old has pinpointed as being the most important of them all.
In an exclusive interview in the October issue of AW, out now, Bell talks about the extraordinary breakthroughs she has made since making a return to athletics and reuniting with the coaching team of Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows late last year.
She has now left her job in cyber security to concentrate full-time on her sporting career and is still processing the year of her life on the track, but she can trace the start of the success-building momentum back to that day in Germany.
“Running a British record and getting an Olympic medal are obviously the big ticket moments,” she says of that run of 3:52.61 in Paris. “But, for me, the race that I think was the most crucial, and one I’m the most proud of, was that first race in January in Dortmund.
Jessica Hull, Faith Kipyegon and Georgia Bell (Getty)
“It was a bronze level indoor meet that I got a cancellation spot to and I got that spot from emailing the Meet Director and just trying to hustle my way in and get my foot in the door.
“I had no agent, no brand working with me at this point and it set the tone for the whole season. The goal going in was to get 4:06 to try and make it to the World Indoors. I went in so determined, on a mission to run that time, and ended up running 4:03. I smashed past what we were expecting and set the tone of ‘we really don’t know where I am, so there’s no point putting limits on what I can aim for’.
“I kept carrying that into every single race during the whole year and that kicked off a series of events that got me a contract, that got me an agent and, ultimately, has changed my life totally.”
Bell, a former English Schools champion over 800m, stepped away from the sport after an injury-plagued spell during her time at university in California that saw her body breaking down in the fact of high mileage demands in the NCAA environment.
Georgia Bell (Getty)
However, she says: “I honestly don’t have any resentment or anger towards that period of time. It was obviously sad in loads of ways, just not achieving your potential and I think that it would have been amazing to be really good in the NCAA and then go on to a professional career. But I honestly think people will go on different journeys, and there’s no one set path to getting there.
“At the end of the day, I’m a professional athlete now, I’ve got an Olympic medal and hopefully I will get more. I’ve ended up in the same spot, even though it’s gone through a different route.
“There are loads of benefits of going to the NCAA. At the moment, I’m seeing people that I know on social media who have just gone off and started their journey and a bit of me is like: ‘You’re going to have so much fun’.
“I remember those pre-season training camps in Lake Tahoe and travelling with your team to big races. I still think that there is huge value in it. It just didn’t work out for me. If I had a child in the future and they wanted to go, I would very much encourage them to do it. It would just have to be the right program and right kind of coaching set-up.”
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