Georgia Bell says a competitive run around Tooting with George Hunter before the Covid lockdown of 2020 pulled her back into running. She was 25 and working as a cybersecurity account director when the jog turned into something faster.
Tooting run with George Hunter
“It was when I wasn’t exercising or anything,” she said of that period, before adding: “But I mentioned that I used to be a runner. And he was like: ‘Oh great, let’s go for a run.’” The route started easy, then kept building pace until, in her words, “We were literally sprinting by the end.”
Hunter’s reaction was immediate: “He was like: ‘Wow, we’ve got to get you back into running.’” Bell said the next step was not a one-off but a change in routine. “It just gradually became part of our lifestyle and then, before I knew it, the fitness did come back really quickly.”
From parkrun to 2023
In 2020, Bell came back with a parkrun in just under 17 minutes, and by 2023 she had reunited with Trevor Painter’s training group. She was 30 when she returned to elite competition, which is where the story stops being a nice anecdote and becomes a serious performance arc: a runner who was out of the system, then re-entered it and climbed straight into medal territory.
By the end of 2025, Bell had won Olympic bronze and three European and World Championships silvers. She also won gold in the 1500 metres at the World Indoor Championships in March and gold in the 800m at the Commonwealth Games last month. That is the hard evidence that her comeback was not sentimental nostalgia; it produced results at the highest level.
Sunday night in London
After describing herself as a “caged animal” after winning her heat on Saturday, Bell goes into Sunday night’s European 1500m final as the clearest favourite for gold among the British team. She has also said she looks at Lionel Messi, Novak Djokovic and Harry Kane as proof that athletes can keep improving into their 30s, and she no longer treats Faith Kipyegon as unbeatable after beating Jessica Hull and Lilian Odira.
That is the part worth watching: Bell’s comeback now has a second act, with the 800m and 1500m both on her radar and her own age no longer working against her in the way it once might have. The Tooting run was the start; Sunday night is the test.
