Amy Hunt’s Cambridge University supervisors would not have approved but when you win a World Athletic Championship silver medal, you can probably get away with describing it as “pretty lit”.
The new face of British sprinting shocked the world as she reached the second step of the podium in the women’s 200m in her first global final.
She has not yet fact-checked it but having earned a 2:1 in English literature at the world's third oldest university before making this most special of World Championship debuts, she may now find herself in a select group of one.
“I don't think anyone else has a world medal and a Cambridge degree. So that's pretty lit,” she said after finishing second only to America’s Melissa Jefferson-Wooden.
“That's not a very English literature degree of me to say that, but that's pretty insane.”
Her entire story may also be insane. An age-group superstar who set the U18 200m world record six years ago - leading to Vogue to label her one of the 'faces to define the decade', she then had to come through a devastating ruptured tendon in her quadricep that needed her mum to help lift her into the shower.
That could have broken most but Hunt’s early success had given her the self-belief that she could challenge and beat the best in the world.
After edging out double Olympic champion Shericka Jackson, the second-fastest woman in history, that self-belief seems justified.
“It's been an incredible three years, from a complete tendon rupture, surgical repair, going through the Cambridge system, getting my degree, moving countries to somewhere where I really still don't speak the language,” added Hunt, 23, who moved to Italy to train in Padua two years ago.
“It's been a massive rollercoaster, and I've just trusted myself the whole entire time, I've just known I had it within me, and that failure was never an option for me. I knew I would make it.
“I think running so fast, so young, faster than any of these girls have run aged 17. I knew I was too talented for it to go to waste. I had a fire. I had a light inside of me that just said 'it's worth it, keep going'.
“I knew I would make it. And even before this race, I visualised it so many times and to actually finally do it is so incredibly surreal.
“That's why I screamed. And yeah, it just shows that you can truly, truly achieve anything. If you truly believe in yourself deep down, anything is possible.”
Hunt’s silver puts her at the forefront of British women’s sprinting, running 22.14s, with former world champion Dina Asher-Smith taking fifth in the final.
That she has done so after navigating a Cambridge degree is all the more commendable, and she hopes it will serve as an example to others.
She added: “I’m so proud of myself for choosing the harder path, I could have picked an easier way out many times.
“I chose to go to Cambridge and get a degree, in part to look back on and be proud of but in part to show other young girls you don’t have to give up education. You can be an academic badass and a track goddess.”
That is not to say it was all plain sailing in Cambridge, where academic excellence and elite sport made for an uncomfortable cocktail.
If athletics is all about cadence and lactate threshold, Cambridge is more Esquire Bedells and Scarlet Days.
She said: “It exists in its own crazy world with so many different random, made-up words, supervisions and the dining hall is something out of Harry Potter.
“You're wearing your robes and the gong sounds and you have to stand up and recite Latin. It's a completely different, entirely different world.
“But some of the friends I made there, some of the lessons I learned there really taught me resilience.
“You know, some of my directors of studies would press so hard for an answer and you have to come up with something on the spot and trust your gut and stay calm under pressure.”
After you have been put under pressure by some of the greatest minds on the planet, how hard can it be to produce your best against the world’s fastest sprinters?
If you’re Amy Hunt, it turns out, not very.
:: Follow all the action from the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 on BBC.
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