Just one year into paddling a kayak, Bull and her K2 partner Alyce Wood (nee Burnett) stunned the world when they qualified for the Rio Olympic Games the Women’s K2… no one was more surprised than Bull herself. 

Speaking to ‘En Route to Paris’ podcast host, triple Olympian Rowie Webster, Bull reflected on the different preparations each Olympic Games has presented her. 

“I only started doing sprint kayak in 2015, full time. So for me and AB [Alyce Wood] to actually qualify those spots for ourselves in Rio was almost like… I didn't really expect it to happen. 

“It was kind of like, “oh, I'll make the switch to this sport and hopefully aim for Tokyo” and Rio was just this amazing bonus that we managed to qualify for the team. I felt so young and so fresh in the sport, I had no idea what I was doing,” she said. 

With the Olympic flame well and truly lit within her, Bull turned her focus to Tokyo, banking on a full four year preparation.  But when COVID hit, her lead into the Olympic Games looked anything but straight forward, with four years pushing out to five and no international competition leading into the Games. 

“[Rio was] such a contrast to Tokyo, we were K2 favourites that whole season. It was kind of like we were expecting to win and get back on the team again. 

“I think for us to be able to qualify for that first Games as a crew together is still a really, really special memory for me. 

“And then to be able to go and race again in Tokyo and we actually now hold the fastest time an Australia crew has ever done a K2 women's 500m race in, and we did that in Tokyo twice. So, that for me is also an achievement that we'll be able to carry until someone else paddles that fast. But, to finish a fifth, and half a second off the medals made me really hungry this cycle.

“I haven't even done a proper [Olympic] cycle yet given that Tokyo was that extra year and then this one [Paris] is only three years long. I don't even know what a normal four year cycle is for me. So maybe that's a good thing. I can't relate it to having a proper four year prep,” she said. 

Since making her Rio Olympic debut aged 20 years, Bull will now go into the Paris Games one of the veterans of the kayaking squad, a role that she relishing. 

“I've been the baby on the team ever since I started travelling overseas with the Australian Kayak team. 

“A lot of those girls retired from that cycle after Tokyo and AB went and had a beautiful little baby Florence, so she had that 2022 season off as well. 

“All of a sudden there was this new crop of young girls I'd seen racing juniors and U23s and it kind of hit me… everyone was asking me questions “oh, so what about this? And what do I do with this?” And it's like, I know the answers to that now!”

When it comes to stepping into a leadership role within her team, Bull is hoping to draw upon her experience not only from the two previous Olympics but also her work as a Queensland firefighter, to help her within her K4 team she’ll be paddling as part of at the Paris Games. 

“I joined the Queensland Fire Service in 2017 and for me, the relationship between the two go hand in hand, it's all about teamwork. 

“You can't do your job as a firefighter without the person that's perhaps going into a burning building with you. 

“At the end of the day their skills and what they bring to the crew is just as important as what you can bring to the crew. The same goes paddling a K2 or a K4. 

“In a K4, we're trying to move in perfect unison with three other people that are so strong and so powerful and sometimes the more power you put in it could almost disrupt a boat. So you need to find a way to maximise your power input to still make the boat run smoothly. 

“Everyone again brings different aspects to that. There’s starters who are really explosive and really powerful and really speedy. 

“And then you've got these people that are aerobically fit and they've got the back end to keep pushing through a race. So I think it's important to have a mixture of both in a crew to make sure that you can make it through the 500 the best way possible,” she said. 

Bull said while her K4 boat is made up of strong talent amongst Olympic debutants Ally Clarke, Yale Steinepreis, and Ella Beere, they couldn’t do what they do on the water without a huge support network behind them. 

“Our core network at the NCE (National Centre of Excellence) at Pizzey Park on the Gold Coast is phenomenal. Physio Kate… she does an amazing job to keep me and the whole team running. 

“My coach Rene, he's an absolute mastermind when it comes to training programs. I push back a lot. I ask a lot of questions, can I do this? Can I do that? And he tells me to trust him. So, a lot of faith! And it always comes off in the end,” she said.