The father and coach of Australian running star Jessica Hull says he regrets how he reacted after his daughter was clipped and sent crashing at the national athletics championships.
Simon Hull, who has been credited as both a close coach and a fierce advocate, admitted he handled the moment “the wrong way” when Jessica’s bid for history was derailed on Friday night. The blow-up lasted around 15 minutes in the stands, as Hull protested the decision and yelled, “We’re not copping that,” adding, “Jess was robbed.” Actually, hearing it in the stadium air—close, loud, and a bit too sharp—was exactly the kind of scene that tends to spread fast.
Hull had set an ambitious goal at Sydney Olympic Park: winning each of the 800m, 1500m and 5000m titles at a single Australian championships, a feat never achieved by any athlete, male or female, at that event. That attempt was sensationally interrupted when she was clipped by Claudia Hollingsworth and sent face-first into the track during the home straight of the 1500-metre final. Hollingsworth won the race and was disqualified, but her camp appealed and the disqualification was overturned after a two-hour hearing on Saturday afternoon.
In reflecting on what happened, Hull said he apologised after his reaction. “I could have been a lot better. I could have been a lot calmer,” he told Misryoum. He also said he contacted the national federation, adding that if anything he said was heard by kids, he “certainly regret[s] it.” Misryoum understands Hull contacted Australian Athletics high-performance boss Andrew Faichney to apologise, and that he has a strong relationship with him.
Hull still doubled down on his view that Jessica was “robbed” by the reversal, and he argued the incident effectively “destroyed her weekend of creating some history”. He said acting the way he did was not like him, insisting, “Jessica is an absolutely first-class sports person and you don’t want people to think that their dad’s a lunatic.” Still, he acknowledged there was a line he approached and didn’t respect: “There’s right and wrong ways to go about things, and I was sort of on the edge of the wrong way.”
There’s also no rift, Hull said—contrary to reports that had circulated in recent weeks—after he took aim at the chatter following his daughter’s 5000m win on Sunday. Hull said it was “just a bit of emotion and it won’t happen again.” In a statement, Australian Athletics said Hollingsworth’s disqualification was overturned after “viewing all the available footage and interviewing concerned parties”, though it didn’t provide specific reasons for the reversal.
After winning the 5000m final, Jessica Hull said the initial DQ was based on jostling and a “hand touch”, and that taps in the back had been enough for the original decision. She said the reversal occurred because it wasn’t enough to bring her down, and also pointed out the protest at the time didn’t include the legs—meaning, as she put it, “you don’t get a second go at that.” By Sunday, Hollingsworth was among the first team named for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, while Jessica missed out on automatic qualification. However, Australian Athletics is expected to select her for the 1500m in the discretionary phase.
Simon Hull’s argument doesn’t end at the procedural details. “When you’re denied an opportunity to win through no fault of your own, it’s very difficult to take,” he said. “And we knew we had to put a protest in, but it’s still not going to help you. So you’re doing this basically trying to find the real winner of the race – it’s just unfortunately not going to be you.” He added that it “essentially destroyed her weekend” and that he was “pretty confident” she would have gone on to win three events, or at least given the field a serious push. The way the race played out, he said, looked “exactly how I thought it would”, and that she had another gear—unfortunately, she didn’t get to use it.
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