![]() “And it gave me a lot of confidence going back into training because I'm like, ‘Wow, if somebody as amazing as her believes in me, then why can't I believe in myself?’” “It’s really humbling that somebody that I put on such a high pedestal would say those things about me,” she said of Joyner-Kersee. "She's amazing," Joyner-Kersee concluded.įor Hall – who said she wants “to be the best ever” – the words stuck. “She’s young and I just can’t wait to see what her future is going to be like in this event.” “Anna, that fierce competitor, she kept pushing and didn’t give up,” Joyner-Kersee said on the NBC broadcast after Hall won her bronze. Injury included, it had been a whirlwind 12 months for Hall, who had transferred from University of Georgia to Florida, winning NCAA titles both indoors and outdoors, and earning the accolades from a GOAT, two-time Olympic heptathlete champion and world record holder, Jackie Joyner-Kersee. In the weeks after her bronze at Worlds in July of 2022, she announced she was signing with adidas and turning pro. How Hall looks at athletics now is as a professional. Trials 2021 (R) (Getty Images - both) Anna Hall: As Jackie Joyner-Kersee watches on As much as it hurt and I was so upset and I cried for months and I felt so bad for myself, I really think, honestly, that was God's way of showing me, ‘Okay, you need to change the way you're looking at track.’”Īnna Hall: At Worlds 2022 (L) and U.S. “I honestly don't think I would have done what I did last year had I not gotten injured. “The injury was a really big inflection point in my career,” Hall told recently in an exclusive interview. Not only did that knock Hall out of the running – and out of contention for her debut Olympics at Tokyo 2020 – she broke her navicular bone in her foot, requiring a pin to be inserted and some three months of not putting any weight on her foot.īut that second moment came at the 2022 World Athletics Championships, where Hall – in the final event of the heptathlon – scored a win in the women’s 800m to capture the bronze medal, collapsing to the track in exhaustion and glee, just 13 months removed from her disaster. Olympic Trials, when Hall – still just 20 years old and a star on the rise – took a startling crash in the 100m hurdles, the opening event of the women’s heptathlon. At first glance, the scenes are much the same: There is Anna Hall, American heptathlete, lying on the track floor of the historic Hayward Field, in Eugene, Oregon.īut when you zoom in on Hall’s face in these two particular and distinct moments, her expression tells the difference: One is filled with heartbreak and anguish and the other? The other is bubbling over with elation, joy and accomplishment.
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