SBS VICELAND and will provide all the action from August 19-27, with live and free coverage of all sessions, as well as full replays, extended highlights and more available for Australian audiences.
Hull will compete in the women’s 1500m and 5000m events in Budapest, where she will feature alongside fellow Australians Linden Hall, Abbey Caldwell (both 1500m), Rose Davies and Lauren Ryan (5000m).
With over 65 athletes making up the wider Australian squad, the number of middle-distance runners involved was particularly pleasing to Hull, who put the depth down to .
In the case of Hall and Caldwell, this increase in competition hasn’t hindered Hull’s development, but only enhanced it with a healthy dynamic between competitiveness and camaraderie.
“Further into the season we get, we appreciate the fact that there’s so much depth in Australian distance running,” Hull told SBS Sport.
“It’s really nice and refreshing, and a good reminder of the way we’re going in Australia. It’s going to get more and more connected on the circuit, having more and more Australians being able to get lanes in these meets.”
For Hull, however, this season has been about more than just making the meets, with the 26-year-old approaching the World Championships fresh off victories in the Maurie Plant Meet, Sydney Track Classic and the Australian Championships.
Such form has also followed her to Diamond League competitions in Europe, where podium placings in Italy and Norway preceded top-five finishes in Monaco and Sweden.
It’s all about taking the next step, according to the 26-year-old; about aiming higher than the seventh place she mustered in the last world championships in Eugene, and making good on the work she’s put in over the past 12 months.
“Going into Budapest this year, I’m a bit more of a versatile athlete,” Hull explained.
“I think last year I still kind of needed the race to go a certain way to bring out my best. Whereas this year I feel pretty prepared for any situation or scenario.
“I feel like I’m prepared to run hard in the heat, semi-final and the final. I’m prepared to run it in many different ways, so it’s just a bit of a different feeling going in knowing that if anything is thrown at me, I have the tools to answer it.
“The way I’m training and the way I’m putting it together, I want to be a lot higher than seventh. I’d love to run a PB along the way as well but that’s not the priority in the Championships. I think just being higher than seventh, I’d love to be a contender for a medal.”
Speed, particularly in the final 400 metres, will play a large part in achieving that goal which is why Hull has worked together with her father to tweak certain training habits.
“It’s probably been no secret until this year that speed was probably my weakness, and it was purely just from not having worked on it for a long time,” she said.
“So, I’ve sort of mixed training up a little bit more; I brought in the (focus on) speed. I’ve done some things in training that I’m like, ‘oh, I didn’t realise I could run that fast’, and it just gives you a confidence as well to know that you’re not just waiting for a certain style of race.
“Knowing that I can go out there and, if it goes one way or another, I can still be there and not be so set on going fast from the start and hanging on – I think that’s definitely the tool that I’ve strengthened a lot.”
Possessing that greater sense of freedom could put the national champion in good stead against the rest of the field in Budapest, one that will undoubtedly test Hull but also further her development ahead of the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
“I’m excited to see what I can do in the Championships from just working on that little bit of a weakness [speed] that had been there and starting to, hopefully, turn it into a bit more of a strength," she added.
