Linden Hall

As a teenager, Linden Hall was not an outstanding athlete, but through her journey of years of commitment and training, she has developed into the fastest 1500m athlete in Australian history.

Linden started running while in primary school in Victoria, placing 11th in her first national championships – in cross country, while in grade six. She was playing netball and swimming, but would eventually give away those sports as she joined Athletics Essendon club and commenced regular athletics training with a coach.

After high school she headed to college in America and from 2011 to 2015, studied Dietetics at Florida State University.

During her college athletics career, Linden made strong progress running in three National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) 1500m finals and winning bronze in 2014.

A few months after graduating, in Europe in 2015, she made a breakthrough with a five-second 1500m PB of 4:10.41.

The improvement continued in May 2016 where she ran 4:04.47 in Stanford and four weeks later, 4:01.78. She was then, the third-fastest in Australian history and in sight of the national record held by one of her former coaches, Sarah Jamieson.

In 2016 Linden competed at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games where she made the semi-finals.

At the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, she placed fourth in the 1500m, missing a medal by just 0.23 seconds and in May and July, claimed the national records in the 1500m (4:00.86 in Prefontaine) and mile (4:21.40 in London).

She didn’t run domestically in 2019 with a number of injuries - two torn calf muscles and tendons, a torn quad muscle and tendonitis in the knee and quads.

Liden returned to competition in mid-2019 and made a late qualification for the 2019 Doha World Championships, where on limited training, made the 1500m semi-final. 

She trained well during 2020 during the COVID lockdown period. In Europe, Jessica Hull broke Linden’s 1500m record clocking 4:00.42, and taking the record close to four minutes.

Domestically in 2020-21, Linden was clearly in the best shape of her career.

She started with a 3000m PB in December, then set two 800m PB's, becoming just the eighth Australian woman to run under two minutes, she then broke the Australian 1000m record.

With Jessica Hull in America and due to compete, the race was on for the first Australian woman to break four minutes for 1500m. But at Box Hill on April 1, 2021, Linden achieved her goal, clocking 3:59.67.

It had been a terrific season from Linden who also broke the national 1000m record and achieved Olympic qualifiers in the 800m and 1500m. At the National Championships in April she confirmed her selection by taking the title.

After preparing for her second Olympic Games in Australia, she was magnificent in Tokyo placing sixth in the Olympic 1500m final, the second highest ever by an Australian woman and the best for 25 years.

Selected on three Australian teams in 2022, Linden set PBs in the mile - indoors and outdoors. In March 2022 she competed in her first World Indoor Championships, placing sixth in the 1500m final in 4:06.34. Her time was the fastest ever by an Aussie at the championships and her place equal best ever finish. At the World Championships in Eugene, Linden ran well in the heats, but in the semi-final placed a non-qualifying 9th, missing the final. Two weeks later she was 4th in the 1500m at the Commonwealth Games.

There was no stopping her in 2023, with selection in her 9th Australian team - for the Budapest World Championships. On the clock she set PBs over 1000m, 1500m, mile and 3000m and broke the national 1500m record twice with extraordinary times of 3:57.27, then 3:56.92.

Selected for her 10th appearance in the green and gold, Linden competed in the 1500m heats at the 2024 World Indoor Championships. In April she was third in the national title, ahead of a European campaign which included a terrific run of 3:58.96 in June.