BIRMINGHAM — Soon after she crossed the line in the 200m final in Birmingham last Thursday, having won the second of four gold medals at the European Championships, Amy Hunt spread her arms wide, looked down the camera and shouted: “Are you not entertained?”

The Gladiator reference was fitting for the 24-year-old who had just conquered the fastest sprinters in Europe. Hunt became the first athlete in the 92-year history of the championships to win four golds at a single edition, completing a sprint double before anchoring British teams to glory in the women’s 4x100m relay and mixed 4x100m.

It solidified her as Britain’s sprint queen, while her words throughout the week denoted an athlete who is completely at ease wearing the crown.

Hunt knows how good she is, and she’s not afraid to say it.

She had called her shot before the event, saying “I want it all”, meaning four gold medals. And as she powered to the fourth victory on Sunday, she stuck her tongue out and later held up four fingers. Mission accomplished.

But amid all the adulation, there was a depressing, predictable backlash in some quarters. Many, it seemed, did not like Hunt’s bullish attitude, the way she carried herself and the assured confidence in her words.

In athletics, she’s a departure from the norm. This is a sport where it’s more typical to tread with caution ahead of major events, then bat away praise in the aftermath.

Hunt doesn’t do that, and after winning 200m silver at the World Championships in Tokyo last year, the Cambridge graduate said she’d proved to young girls that you can be an “academic badass and a track goddess”.

She is smart, speedy and carries an assured swagger to the start line. That main-character energy is common among male sprinters, and few had issues with it when it was Usain Bolt or Noah Lyles strutting around behind the blocks.

But among female athletes it’s less common, less accepted, with a subtle, societal expectation to not shout too loud about their own achievements, to always be measured in pre-race predictions and modest in victory. Some look at Hunt’s confidence and all they can see is arrogance.

She’s tall, talented and ebullient in her self-belief, with a cover-girl image and a precocious sprinting gift that saw Vogue label her “one of the faces to define the decade” when she was still a teenager.

Hunt doesn’t shy away from that limelight. She leans into it.

That has its drawbacks, and she has dealt with abuse and lewd messages on social media ever since exploding on to the scene as a 17-year-old, setting a world U-18 record for 200m.

She knows that censoring her true self would do her, and the sport, few favours. Athletics faces a constant battle for public attention and one of the keys to getting it is stars who are unafraid to speak bluntly and boldly, to show their true personalities – even if it brings a backlash.

“People are always going to hate,” Hunt told in March. “One thing that is maybe controversial to say is that I think athletes should be open to a little bit more hate.

“That sounds horrible, but I mean it in a way that if we want our sport to grow, because if we look at all the other sports – football, tennis, F1 – that are huge in public and cultural consciousness, they get a lot more hate and aggression than we do.”

Such criticism doesn’t seem to affect her. If anything, it emboldens her.

“Everyone’s entitled to their own opinions,” she said. “So in the least cocky way possible, my opinion is the only one that matters.”

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After powering to the 100m title last Monday, Hunt did not pretend the outcome came as a surprise, but it was proof of a “big premonition” that she’d be the champion. “I’m someone who doesn’t shy away from what she knows she can do,” she said. “I knew I could come away with a gold.”

It might draw some pockets of criticism, but with four gold medals and an exploding profile, it’s clearly helping her connect with the masses. Hunt is now odds-on favourite to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award, ahead of another big-talking track star, Josh Kerr.

Those who want her to rein in that personality, talk a little less or dim her natural light rarely say the same about male athletes. She should be widely heralded for being willing to talk a big game and then back it up. Sport could do with more female stars who are just like her.