The first Australian woman to break four minutes for the 1500m, Linden Hall has been a beacon of support for her fellow members of the nation’s athletics team over the past week in Paris.

As a leader of the Australian Flame, the 33-year-old has become a dab hand at offering assistance during major meets.

Having matured from a “starstruck” debutante who narrowly missed the final in Rio de Janeiro to a sixth-placed finish in Tokyo, Hall has the experience to focus on her own preparations for Paris while also assisting younger Aussies on the team to find their best form.

Need to book a massage? No worries. Can’t find the team doctor? We can sort you out.

And as for a good coffee? This might be the Melburnian’s greatest strength aside from her running, which is not necessarily a surprise given her home city.

“Any city that has a major athletics meet, I can probably tell you where to get a decent coffee,” she told foxsports.com.au

“I’ve got a lot of notes on my phone of various coffee shops where I have spent a lot of time. There is a whole spreadsheet of scores out of five for all the different coffee shops.

“It is a good activity because you want to be doing something pretty low key before a race, so finding somewhere to get a coffee and sit down, read a book or catch-up with some other friends and athletes is a pretty chill way to kill some time.

“It’s always a fine line of not spending too much energy, but not sitting around your hotel just, you know, going crazy.”

The Australian athletics team has already started in style, with Jemima Montag claiming a bronze in the 20km walk and Nicole Olysagers and Eleanor Patterson finishing in podium spots in the high jump.

Hall, who features alongside her friend and compatriot Jessica Hull in the heats of the 1500m tonight in Paris, said sharing a senior role among teammates was a joy.

“It’s sort of a leadership group, so we’re sharing the load and we’ve all got different strengths and weaknesses and days where we’re competing, or days where we are busy,” she said.

“There are some things that you learn, just by being on the team, that you can share with first-time athletes that … you might not realise it’s actually that useful but they might have never been drug tested and you can explain the process.

“I guess (it) can be pretty rewarding because I think we’ve all been in that spot where we’ve got no idea what’s going on and don’t know anyone. So if you can give back a little bit, I think that’s quite rewarding.”

FROM STARSTRUCK TO SENIOR STATESWOMAN

Hall showed promise in netball and swimming as a kid but it was running that she fell in love with while growing up in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Essendon.

A promising performer through high-school, she headed to Florida State University on a running scholarship and contested three NCAA 1500m finals, winning a bronze in 2014.

That provided the impetus to pursue her Olympic ambitions and, after rejoining the Victorian Institute of Sport, she realised her dream as a 25-year-old in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.

“Gosh, that first day I was a bit starstruck, I think,” she said.

“These athletes who you’d watched do such great things and then you’re all of a sudden on the same team as them … and you (are considering) the resume of those on the plane and you’re thinking, ‘Wow. I’m a part of this’, which was pretty cool. Rio was definitely a little bit surreal (because) it was something I thought about for so long as well and it was like, ‘Wow, I actually did it.’

“Eventually you find your feet and you feel a little bit more like you belong, and then the next wave of athletes come along, and you’re like, ‘Alright, come on. I’ll show you the ropes. I know how this feels.’”

Hall ran extremely well in the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018 when narrowly missing a medal and then, in 2021, posted an Australian first when breaking four minutes.

It was a breakout year for the Aussie, who finished third in both her heat and semi-final in the Tokyo Olympics before running sixth in the final when lowering her mark again to 3:59.01.

“Tokyo … couldn’t have gone better. I ran a (personal best) in the final (and) you can’t do much more,” she said.

“But everything around the Games experience was completely different, (with) not really any spectators or no family was able to go, but I kind of liked it. There were no distractions and you didn’t feel like you were missing out on doing the fun things, because they were not there.

“I probably learnt some lessons about … staying focused on the on the task and what you’re there for and not trying to do everything while you are there, because in Rio … I wanted the whole experience.”

A NEW CHALLENGER EMERGES INSPIRED BY THE TRAILBLAZER

Hall has continued to excel in the years since Tokyo.

In 2022 she won a Diamond League race in Stockholm prior to another fourth-placed finish in the Commonwealth Games, this time in Birmingham.

Last year the 33-year-old set another Oceania record in the prestigious Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, of 3:56.92 and set another PB at a meeting in Paris just two months ago when lowering her best time by half-a-second.

But the trailblazer has become the chaser in Australia with the emergence of an outstanding crop of middle-distance runners including Hull.

After finishing in 11th position in Tokyo in 2021, Hull produced a staggering run in the same race in Paris two months ago where Hall ran a PB when clocking 3:50.83, the fifth fastest time ever.

Less than a week later Hull, who was a two-time NCAA Division 1 champion when running for the University of Oregon, set a world record over 2000m at a meet in Monaco.

The pair have trained together at different stages in recent years and Hall says both get a kick out of the success of the other – and also enjoy the confusion they sometimes create.

“Jess and I have gotten to spend a bit of time together over the last couple of years and do a little bit of training together,” she said.

“So when you’ve sort of seen a bit behind the scenes, it’s always really nice to see that success on the other side. Jess is just, like, super professional and super gracious.

“When I’ve run PBs and when I (took) the Australian record back off her in (Oregon), I think she was the first person to message me, which … is really cool and special.

“And we always get a big kick out of everyone just mixing us up with our last names being similar, which is always a good laugh. I think most of our text (messages) go, like, ‘I think someone thought I was you again, ha ha’, and then explaining the context.”

A CHILDHOOD TEAMMATE BECOMES A PARIS INSPIRATION

The success enjoyed by Grace Brown, who produced a remarkable ride to win gold in the women’s time trial through the streets of Paris last week, tugged at Hall’s heartstrings.

It is more than 20-years since the pair were teammates on a Victorian Cross country team and they have reconnected on Australian senior teams over the past few years.

In Tokyo, Hall realised that five of the 15 girls to make that cross-country team as Grade 6 students had remarkably become Australian Olympians, though she “was the only one still running”.

“I love being able to connect with athletes from other sports and … watch them and feel a bit connected to it,” she said.

“I think that’s one of my favourite things about the VIS, is getting to know athletes from different sports, especially some of the sports that I probably haven’t had much exposure to.

“Grace and I know each other through running from when we were pretty small (but we) probably hadn’t seen much of each other until recent years.

“But obviously I’ve loved following her success (and) it’s really cool when we do find ourselves in the same part of the world and get to compare stories and things like that.”