Olympic Rematch Between Medallists Jessica Hull & Georgia Bell Headlines 2025 NYRR Wanamaker Mile

In January 2024, if Georgia Bell wanted to run in an indoor meet, she had to go to the World Athletics website, look up the meet director’s email address, and beg. Bell and her coaches, Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows, would have to explain why a 30-year-old with a 4:06 personal best at 1500 meters and no accomplishments to speak of at the senior level deserved a spot on the start line.

In January 2025, meet directors are the ones begging Bell to run in their races. An Olympic bronze medal will do that.

On February 8, Olympic silver medalist Jessica Hull of Australia and Bell will headline the women’s NYRR Wanamaker Mile at the 2025 Millrose Games in New York alongside World Indoor medalists Nikki Hiltz and Emily Mackay of the United States. One year ago, the idea of Bell headlining any race — let alone one of the most glamorous events on the indoor circuit — would have seemed laughable, mainly because most of the running world did not know Bell existed.

“A lot has changed in this past year,” says Bell in an interview with LetsRun.com. “Being invited to be at such a prestigious event like Millrose, I’m just really appreciative and really excited to step on the start line and race there.”

2025 women’s NYRR Wanamaker Mile confirmed athletes

A new year brings a new reality for Bell

Being in-demand by race organizers is just one of many aspects of Bell’s new reality as an Olympic medalist. A year ago, she was working an office job in cybersecurity, waking up at 6 a.m. to cycle before work and heading to the track for a session at 7 p.m. once she had finished. Now Bell is a full-time professional runner. Her shoe contract with Nike offers many benefits, not least of which is the freedom to sleep in until 9 a.m. if she so desires.

Bell’s goals have also evolved significantly over the past 12 months. This time last year, her biggest goal for the year was to make the British team for World Indoors.

“That was kind of my Olympics,” Bell says. “I was like, maybe if I really try, [I could make the team because] I thought a lot of people would be skipping indoors because they’re focusing on Paris in the summer.”

Bell did make the team and finished fourth in the 1500m final in Glasgow, one of many surprises in a breakout season that saw her drop her personal bests from 2:03 in the 800 and 4:06 in the 1500 to 1:56 and 3:52.

In 2025, Bell is thinking much bigger. Once again, she is targeting World Indoors, which will be held in Nanjing, China, from March 21-23, and this time, she wants a medal. Bell also plans on running at the European Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands (March 6-9), as well as the outdoor World Championships in Tokyo (September 13-21).

 ”I want to come away with as much hardware as possible,” Bell says. “So that means competing at all of the major championships.”

But first is a trip to the United States, where Bell plans on racing at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix on February 2 before heading down to Millrose six days later for a race that will look very similar to last year’s Olympics. While Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon will be absent — she has not run a single indoor race during her decorated career — four of the top seven from the women’s 1500m final in Paris will be at Millrose.

Top 8 finishers in 2024 women’s Olympic 1500m final

In contrast to the men’s 1500, where global stars Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Josh Kerr famously dislike one another, Bell says she enjoys the camaraderie between her fellow milers.

“We are all super friendly, but we all want to race,” Bell says, “so I think it will just be a really good matchup and yeah, excited to see them on the start line.”

All four of these women will be in the 2025 NYRR Wanamaker Mile (Kevin Morris photo)

All four of the Olympic finalists who are running Millrose competed in the Pac-12 during the 2010s — Hull, Ejore, and Hiltz all ran for the University of Oregon (Hiltz transferred to Arkansas for their final three years) while Bell ran for the University of California from 2015-17. But because Bell was injured for much of her time at Berkeley, she did not get to know Hull until crossing paths on the pro circuit.

Now the two are kindred spirits, in a way. Like Bell, Hull finished 4th at World Indoors last year (in the 3000) before drastically reducing her 1500 pb to earn an Olympic medal. Unlike Bell, Hull was already world-class at the beginning of last year — she finished 7th in the last two World Championship finals outdoors — but reached a new level at age 27, going from 3:57 to 3:50 (#5 all-time) in 2024. Bell went from 4:06 to a British record of 3:52 at age 30 after taking five years off from running in her 20s.

Both will be vying for their first Wanamaker Mile title. Hull set an Australian record of 4:19.03 in last year’s race but finished a well-beaten second behind Elle St. Pierre (4:16.41). Bell will be making her Millrose debut.

But this is hardly a two-woman race. Ejore was third at Millrose last year and finished 6th in Paris. Hiltz is coming off a career year that included a silver at World Indoors and US titles indoors and out. Mackay earned bronze at World Indoors and ran a pb of 3:55 in the 1500 outdoors to make the US Olympic team, advancing to the semifinals in Paris.

2024 NCAA 1500/mile champion Maia Ramsden (New Zealand), 2022 NCAA 1500 champion Sinta Vissa (Italy), and Elise Cranny (USA) bring the number of 2024 Olympians in the field to eight, plus 2021 US Olympian Heather MacLean and 2022 US outdoor champion Sinclaire Johnson, making for one of the deepest mile races of the entire 2025 indoor season.

You can listen to our full interview with Bell, who was made available by Millrose Games organizers, in this week’s LetsRun.com Track Talk podcast, which will be released on Tuesday. The LetsRun.com Track Talk podcast is available here or wherever you find your podcasts.