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Florida Gators Olympian Anna Hall Makes SI Swimsuit Debut

Originally posted on Florida Gators on SI  |  By Cam Parker  |  Last updated May 13, 2025 7:09 PM ET

Former Florida Gators track-and-field star Anna Hall emerged as one of the NCAA's top athletes after individual national titles in 2022 in the pentathlon and heptathlon while helping the program win its first women's NCAA Indoor team title in 30 years and first women's NCAA Outdoor team title in program history.

After debuting at her first Olympics in the summer of 2024, Hall has now made her debut in the 2025 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. During the shoot, she reflected on her fifth-place finish in the heptathlon in Paris around six months after undergoing knee surgery and her self-confidence as she prepares for the 2028 Games.

"It was like a lifelong dream that came true, and so that's something that I'll always remember," she said. "But also I was coming in as kind of one of the favorites, and then I had knee surgery in January, which was super, super tough. So it was a very stressful situation. Definitely the hardest year of my life emotionally, for sure, just so much doubt in not knowing like what would happen if I'd even be in Paris."

While thankful she even got to participate, Hall is using her fifth-place finish as motivation for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

"At no point was I gonna concede and say we can't do it," she said. "And then, you know, to ultimately fall a little bit short, hurt a lot. I'm hoping it's gonna be that moment in my career that kinda like fuels a fire under me ahead of LA, and is gonna be that moment where God kind of just says not yet, but soon."

Despite falling short in Paris, Hall is one of the young stars in the sport after her collegiate dominance combined with her professional success, which includes a bronze medal in the heptathlon at the 2022 World Athletics Championships, breaking the North American pentathlon record in 2023 with 5004 points (second place on the world all-time list and just the third female in history to achieve 5000 points or more) and a silver medal in the heptathlon at the 2023 World Athletics Championships.

As Hall continues to emerge as one of the top athletes in the entire world, she hopes to be an example to young girls looking to participate in the sport while embracing their body type, something that came with "growing pains" while she was "learning to be comfortable having a body that looks different."

"I really credit my coaches and my sisters to constantly telling me like, no, your body is powerful, and look around at all these other female athletes," she said. "I had such great examples to look to and just see how strong they were. Yeah, they are strong. Like yes, they do have quads. Yes, they have arm muscles. Like I shouldn't be ashamed of that."

Hall uses that confidence in herself as fuel every time she competes with a "look good, compete good" mentality.

"I feel like a huge part of track is building yourself up," she said. "I always say that like my warmup is when I like grow an ego. I feel like I'm transforming from regular Anna to like, I need to be a bad “A”, and part of that I think is like looking really put together."

Reflecting on her journey to this point, Hall has one message on what she wants people to take away from her experiences.

"I hope people take away that being strong is powerful and that I hope that they see me through them," she said. "One thing I always hope to do, whether in sports pictures, is I just hope that I radiate through, um, whatever's being put out. So I hope they see me."

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This article first appeared on Florida Gators on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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