Anna Hall on her journey through adversity to Paris 2024 - and regular phone calls from Jackie Joyner-Kersee: 'It's meant the world'
Three years after a devastating fall that knocked her out of the U.S. Olympic Team Trials and six months after undergoing knee surgery, Anna Hall felt one thing as she crossed the 800m line - the final event of the women's heptathlon.
"Honestly, just relief," Hall, 23, told a small group of reporters in Eugene, Oregon on Monday (24 June). Her 6,614 points not only gave her the victory, but also a ticket to the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
"I've wanted this for so long and my Olympic journey has been really, really hard," said Hall, who won the world silver medal in 2023. "2021 was absolutely devastating. It's just been a lot of adversity and a lot of doubt. And so, just the relief... Llike, we finally made it. I'm just really thankful."
While the former Florida Gator credits a team of coaches and greater support system of family and friends, a certain Olympic champion has been calling her up regularly to offer advice - and lend a listening ear: Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
"There's a huge mentorship there; it's meant the world," Hall said of Joyner-Kersee, the two-time Olympic champion in the heptathlon. "She called me three times last week and said, 'I'm calling you every other day; I'm sorry if I'm annoying you.' She told me that I needed to believe in myself."
Hall said that that belief is what she tapped into most over the last week coming into Eugene, having felt doubt creeping back in ahead of the Trials.
"I just really tapped into my self-belief again," she said. "I had to tap into the competitor that I am. And I just kept telling myself that [I'm] one of the toughest competitors out here so, act like it."
Jackie Joyner-Kersee on Anna Hall: 'She'll go through a brick wall'
"Anna Hall is one of the toughest competitors I've seen," Joyner-Kersee told Olympics.com last month. "She'll go through a brick wall to get it done. She has the mindset that, if she's out there, there's no giving up on Anna: She's going to give it her all."
Joyner-Kersee was in attendance at Hayward Field on Monday (24 June) as Hall secured her Olympic spot in Paris.
No American woman has won the heptathlon since Joyner-Kersee went back-to-back at Seoul 1988 and Barcelona 1992. It's set to be a memorable event inside Stade de France, with two-time and reigning Olympic champion Nafissatou Thiam of Belgium looking for an unprecedented three-peat, while Katarina Johnson-Thompson of Team GB won the world title last season.
"It makes for a really good competition, those three" Joyner-Kersee said simply.
"Paris is going to be like any heptathlon on the global stage, it's going to be war," Hall said. "I'm going to be ready, and I know that they're going to do the same. A lot can happen over seven events. I'm going to try and give myself as much wiggle room as I can."
KJT, as she's known, beat Hall by just 20 points (6740 to 6720) at Worlds for gold last year. Thiam took the European title earlier this month in Rome, where Johnson-Thompson withdrew midway through the event due to a "small niggle" in her right leg.
"Now it's just making sure she stays healthy," Joyner-Kersee said of Hall's injury challenges, too. "[If so], she can compete and give them a run for their money. She's a tough competitor."
Florida connection with Katie Ledecky, Caeleb Dressel and more
Hall spent the 2022 collegiate season at the University of Florida, winning an NCAA heptathlon title before turning pro and capturing bronze at Worlds that summer. But the Gainesville connection still runs deep: She still trains at Florida alongside top American track stars like fellow Olympian Jasmine Moore, and often crosses paths with the renowned extended Gators swim team, including Katie Ledecky. (Ledecky competed at Stanford but now uses Florida as her training base/swim club.)
"I see Katie a few times a week in the weight room," Hall said, before going on to name other swimming champions like Caeleb Dressel and Bobby Finke.
"It's cool just to be around them," Hall said. "And we all encourage each other, message each other on social media. I've been hurt a lot, so I've been in the pool and they'll see me and be like, 'That's actually really good!' I know they're lying but...
"I have massive respect for what they do, because sometimes their workouts are written on the whiteboard when I get in there and I'm like, 'Yes, ma'am! What?! So, yeah."
Among the track athletes there is a strong sense of community, as well as a regular watch party to take in the famed TV show, Survivor. The group has a text group chat they all share - the Survivor chat - which Hall said she was removed from earlier this year while she was struggling to recover from her injury.
It was so they could organise her a surprise pot luck dinner.
"It lifted my spirits; I leaned really hard on them," Hall said of her sporting community. "That's how I got through it."