Amy Hunt was on Good Morning Britain this morning, and she did not come to talk about her own running.
The subject was Sydney Sweeney’s advert for the American betting operator Novig, in which the actress appears with almost nothing on, covering herself with pieces of sports equipment. The campaign landed badly across women’s sport. Hunt had already answered it once, at the weekend, minutes after finishing fourth in the 200m at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest. Her line then was that this, meaning the athletes on the track, is what women in sport look like.
She went further on Tuesday. Hunt’s worry is not the image itself but what a young girl takes from it. “It’s about what your body can do, not so much what it looks like,” she said, before reaching for the number that frames the whole argument: 64 per cent of girls stop exercising before they turn 16.
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“Sport, it’s not pretty”
Hunt’s description of her own week does the persuading. Sessions that end with her being sick at the side of the track. Sessions this year that ended with her crying. None of that photographs well, and that is rather the point she was making.
She has the credentials to make it. Hunt took four golds at the European Championships last month and has spent the past two seasons establishing herself as one of the fastest British sprinters of her generation. When she says elite sport rarely looks attractive, she is describing a job she actually does.
Other athletes reached the same conclusion independently. Gracie Kramer, the former United States gymnast, posted footage of herself competing with a caption pointing out what a woman in sport really looks like. The Australian boxer Skye Nicolson drew the sharper distinction: looking good because you play sport is not the same thing as selling sport with sex.
The reply became the story
Sweeney appeared to respond by sharing old ESPN Magazine BODY Issue photographs, Serena Williams and Megan Rapinoe among them, to her Instagram stories.
Hunt has little interest in prolonging that exchange. What struck her, she said, was that the first thing she saw afterwards was compilation after compilation of women competing. The row detached itself from the advert within a day and turned into something closer to a celebration of women’s sport. She seems content to leave it there.
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