Three years ago, Georgia Bell watched the Tokyo Olympics like the rest of us: from the couch. She was 27, retired as a serious athlete, and the living embodiment of Marlon Brando’s character Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront. Coulda been a contender? Bell was always on the verge until injuries intervened.
But as she watched Team GB’s Alex Bell and Katie Snowden, athletes she had competed against as juniors, something began to stir. A few months later Bell went from that couch to a 5km parkrun in Bushy Park. Slowly she began to run more. Race more. And now, incredibly, she is an Olympic 1500m bronze medallist.
