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When Georgia Hulls studied the Road to Tokyo rankings in March 2021 and she was placed 60th overall – it filled the New Zealand 200m champion with belief she was more than capable of qualifying for the 2022 World Championships in Eugene.
Lying at that time just four places outside of the top 56 (56 athletes are selected for the women’s 200m for the 2022 World Championships), it was far from mission impossible for the Hawke’s Bay-raised athlete, and it steeled her with an inner-belief and desire to make sure she booked her plane ticket for the premier athletics event of the year.
“I knew it was realistic,” she says of qualifying. “Assuming I stayed at a relatively similar level or slightly better.”
Fast forward to today and Georgia is sitting pretty in 39th on the Road to Oregon having guaranteed her spot with victory in the women’s 200m at the Oceania Area Championships in Mackay in June.
During the Australian/New Zealand summer she sustained just one solitary 200m defeat and chipped a further 0.04 from her lifetime best – running 23.17 when winning gold at the Australian Championships in Sydney, to climb to third on the all-time New Zealand women’s 200m rankings.
It has been a great effort by the James Mortimer-coached athlete, who now has a World Championships to look forward to on the back of an outstanding year.
“I’m really proud of how I’ve performed during the season,” she adds. “It has been a long season but a breakthrough season for me. I’m proud of many races I’ve won but also the consistency shown throughout the season.
“I’m really excited to be going to Eugene but I was always confident throughout the season that I would make it.”
Possessing what she admits is a slightly contradictory “massive inner confidence with little external confidence” – Georgia was a supreme sprinting talent from a young age. Growing up in Hawke’s Bay she joined her local Hastings AC at the age of six and quickly developed into a regular champion sprinter throughout her years competing at Colgate Games. This was maintained during her later years as a high school student and as a youngster she harboured a clear belief in her future goals.
“I think I’ve always had that belief that one day I would be competing (at this level),” she says without a hint of arrogance. “I always thought I would do well.”
A huge part of her success has been the coaching input of James Mortimer who has guided her since she moved north to live in Auckland in 2018 – where she studies accountancy at Massey University.
James, who has also guided New Zealand women’s 100m record-holder Zoe Hobbs and national women’s 400m hurdles record holders Portia Bing to the World Championships, boasts a crack squad who are thriving in a top-quality training environment and Georgia is effusive in her praise.
“Everyone is improving and there is great depth with the squad,” she explains. “I personally have made great technical improvements, but I’ve also made improvements outside of athletics too. By having a happy athletics life, it has translated to lots of other things too.
“James has many strengths. He is always very positive but without being unrealistic and is always very athlete driven.”
Aged just 22, making her World Championship debut and competing in one of the most hotly contested events on the programme, where other 200m entrants include the likes of defending champion Dina Asher-Smith, Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah, former world 200m champion Shelley-Ann Fraser-Pryce and US champion Abby Steiner, the competition looks fierce. Yet Georgia refuses to be overwhelmed.
Firstly, she has her training partners Zoe and Portia alongside her in Eugene, and this provides a huge source of comfort.
“I’m so grateful and happy both girls will be here,” she explains. “It is nice to have that familiarity when I’m overseas. Both have experienced World Championships before and as I’ve raced Zoe for what seems my whole career, it will make me more relaxed. Having seen how Zoe has handled performing internationally, it gives me confidence that I can follow the same pathway.”
Meanwhile, secondly, while the World Championships is by some margin the biggest international test of her career, she does have experience of competing at the World U18 Championships in Cali, Colombia and one year later the World U20 Championships in Bydgoszcz.
Aged just 15 in Cali, Georgia reached the semi-finals of the 200m and recalls her time in Colombia as a huge learning experience.
“My time at both events was invaluable,” she adds. “I remember at the World Under 18 champs the environment seemed so professional, and at the time it seemed like life and death. But I was so young and naïve, and I recall setting my blocks up wrong. Yet it was all great experience for future events.”
Before heading over to pre-camp in Monmouth, Oregon, Georgia enjoyed a stint training for three weeks in Montpellier in Southern France alongside her team-mate Portia Bing. There she enjoyed blisteringly hot temperatures all played out in an ultra-professional training environment in which Georgia regularly rubbed shoulders with world decathlon record-holder Kevin Mayer of France and Great Britain’s reigning World heptathlon champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson.
It proved an ideal location for fine-tuning her preparation for the biggest competition of career, where Portia also provided a wise source of knowledge.
“Portia plays the role of assistant manager or mentor within the (training) group. In a similar way to James, she has a very athlete-centric approach and as she has been a very independent athlete travelling all over the world, I’ve learned a lot from her. “
Believing at this stage of her career that her aerobic and anaerobic qualities and her “bouncy” style off the track are best suited to the 200m, the 2019 national 400m champion however admits “I’m not writing off the 400m forever.”
However, the immediate focus is Eugene where she becomes only the third New Zealand woman in World Championship history to compete in the 200m – alongside Monique Dell in 2009 and ten years later Zoe Hobbs.
Dell’s national record of 22.90 – set at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin – would appear to in reach for Georgia. Yet what would she like to achieve when she takes to the start line at Hayward Field on Tuesday 19 July (NZ time)?
“First and foremost, I’d like use Eugene as experience to build on for next year and then, more importantly, through to Paris in 2024,” she adds. “Other than that, I would like to perform better than my ranking and qualify for the semi-finals.”
By Steve Landells