Sprint star Amy Hunt puts Oxbridge mentoring mission before red carpets

Sprinting sensation Amy Hunt turned down invitations to the Peaky Blinders film premiere and London Fashion Week but finds it much harder to say no to teenage athletes wanting to follow in her footsteps to Cambridge.

The 23-year-old blazed to world 200 metres silver last year, spontaneously branding herself afterwards as an “academic badass and track goddess” who had chosen the rare and often difficult path of balancing elite sport with the demands of one of the world’s most selective universities.

It is why, despite her rise to fame, Hunt regularly still takes time out of her packed schedule to help prospective Oxbridge student-athletes uncloak what she feels can be a frustratingly enigmatic application process.

“There are so many girls that message me every single day,” said Hunt, who will challenge fellow Briton Dina Asher-Smith for the world 60m indoor title in Poland this week.

“I love to reply to as many as I can, but it’s actually quite hard. I’m especially (keen to help) girls that are trying to go through the Oxbridge system.

“I’m a big proponent of getting more people through that, because I think we lose a lot of athletes every single year to the States, and I don’t think it’s necessarily the best decision for everyone’s long-term athletic careers. I know my decision felt very limited when I was doing the same thing.”

Conversations are often initiated by young athletes on social media, but Hunt added: “I have people’s parents or brothers or sisters text me as well, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, just give me their number, let’s have a call’, because the world of Oxbridge loves to be so shrouded in mystery, right?

“It’s self-serving, because it keeps that sense of being cloistered away and it protects itself, but us talking about it opens it up a lot more and enables more women and girls from an athletic background to be able to get there.”

Hunt offers insider tips based on her own trial-and-error, from factoring parking into college selection – a lack of it made commuting to training in Loughborough more difficult – to how she managed to redirect her interview from athletics back to Shakespeare.

“I’d love to set up something a bit more official and long term, similar to Stormzy’s Merky scholarships,” she added.

Hunt has taken advantage of a few offers, including a behind-the-scenes peek at Formula One team McLaren, where she tested out a simulator – and did not crash – but missed Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

She stayed in the same galaxy suite of a swanky St Lucia hotel once occupied by Amy Winehouse, and gifted herself a Gucci bag and Tiffany bracelet – rare purchases for an athlete who remains motivated by medals and titles, even with higher-payout events popping up.

Hunt added: “I cannot overstate how much I love to stand on that start-line. It’s my favourite thing in the world.

“I would do it without even getting paid. I said to my agents, I don’t really care about appearance fees or whatnot, I just want to be in these races. Just let me race.”