As part of our 2025 round up on the World Triathlon Podcast, we caught up with Australia's Richelle Hill from her home in Brisbane to reflect over a huge year that culminated in one of the most incendiary finishes ever seen at a World Championships. On day one of October's Wollongong Finals, watched by family and friends and thousands more, Hill roared home, passing Italy's Angelica Prestia as they hit the blue carpet to take a momentous U23 world title and ignite the week as a whole. 

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'I have this mentality,' says U23 World Champion Richelle Hill. 'When I go into a race, I'm like, we're professionals here. We should be striving to always go and win a race, no matter how strong the competition is. I think to have those goals just improves your your own performance. Because if you're just striving for top ten, if you do knock down a few places, you're going to be further back. But if you're striving for that first place, anything after that is just how the race played out. But you're going in there to do the best. And if you're an elite, shouldn't you be striving for that? Number one? And I hold that as a mentality that I want to continue going into races.'

It is a mentality that gave Hill an edge on that start line, leaving her able to go into the biggest race of her life, a huge crowd and expectation behind her, without letting the noise overcome her. But talking to Hill, there is also a remarkable clarity and presence of mind that got her to that tape first. An awareness of the moment, in the heat and brain-scramble of a world championship race, as the run began to look like it was getting away from Hill, that is all the more rare to witness in such a young athlete. 

'I wasn't going to lift with those girls when they lifted because I was like, 'I've got to run my own race here, and what I have at the end, I can then let out and see what happens... I just was mindful of my breathing and monitoring my body's feelings and sensations. Up the hill, I really focused on my breathing. I didn't lift too hard up that hill, but I also allowed my allowed my cadence to increase... I felt I really was in tune with my own body and my own race. I saw the girls ahead and thought, 'well, that may be the world champ, that may be the at the end of the race!'

After coming down on the first bike lap back in the 2024 Championship Finals Torremolinos, Richelle's mum and coach, the 2004 Olympian Rina Hill, insisted she didn't throw in the towel. With each of the seven laps that followed, the youngster, fresh from a severe illness, found it increasingly difficult to adhere to those orders. But finish she did. Just the kind of digging in that helped keep the dream alive as the race threatened to get away in Wollongong.

'I felt those girls actually went slightly early... I could hear by their breathing. I know I said I was really in tune with myself, but it is important to be aware of your surroundings. And I could hear by their breathing that they were actually pushing quite hard up these hills, even though they were keeping with my pacing. And so when they went that lap early, I was like, 'there's still another hill, I don't know if they're going to be able to hold that speed... just keep ticking away and see what happens'. And they started to fade towards the end and I had the opportunity to pick up the pace and I still had energy left over. I was able to finish off strong.'

A planned move to Girona in 2026 will be the longest that Hill and her mum will have been apart. With only three overseas World Cups to date, it will be a stiff test of everything that she has learned so far, and how adaptable they can be to life thousands of miles apart. One thing is for sure, Rina Hill has instilled the tools and mindset in her daughter that can see her succeed in her new environment. And thrive. 

'(I have learned) the mentality that no matter what, I'll get back up. And I think that's something I really want to coach to my juniors as well, I think resilience is something, a value, that if you hold that and you're able to actually execute that value, you can accomplish anything.'