Mackenzie Little

The rise of Tokyo Olympian Mackenzie Little in the last few years has been phenomenal. She has set a PB at three consecutive major meets, the Tokyo Olympics, 2022 World Championships and Birmingham Commonwealth Games. In 2023 she won bronze at the world championships. She has accomplished all of this while being a fulltime medical student. 

Mackenzie started her athletics journey at Northern Suburbs Little Athletics in the Under-6s, but moved on to team sports - soccer, softball, water polo and hockey as she grew older.

One rainy morning before school in Year 7 at Pymble Ladies College, she went to her first javelin training session after her hurdles competition was cancelled.

During her teenage years, Mackenzie didn’t just compete in the javelin, but also at a national level in the 400m hurdles and heptathlon.

By 15, she was already throwing over 50 metres. In 2013 she competed at the World Youth (U18) Championships in Ukraine, where she added five metres to her personal best, to win gold.  

She graduated to the heavier javelin smoothly in 2014, throwing 57.60m, while only 17. A year later she was at Stanford University studying a Bachelor of Science in Human Biology.

Before she graduated in 2019, she had won two NCAA javelin titles and improved her best to 60.36m. 

Back in Australia in 2019, Mackenzie commenced medicine at Sydney University and at the track, made a great start to her 2020/21 season throwing a personal best of 61.42m and cementing her position as the sixth-best in Australian history. 

She compiled a consistent summer of results with four throws over 60m, and recording defeats over world champion Kelsey-Lee Barber and Australian record holder Kathryn Mitchell. 
At nationals she placed third and during a series of competitions in June in Queensland, where she through around 60 metres in a few competitions, she earned enough points to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics

She arrived in Tokyo ranked 24 in the field of 30, but she defied that rating. In her first throw in the qualifying round, she nailed a PB of 62.37m, eventually ending up second in her pool and fourth overall. 
She had company as Australia set a record with three in the final with Kathryn Mitchell and Kelsey-Lee Barber joining her. In the final Mackenzie was again terrific placing eighth with a throw of 59.96m. In Tokyo Mackenzie had been one of the surprise Australian team performances at the Olympics.

In 2022 she raised her PB on five occasions and winning silver at the Commonwealth Games. At the Eugene World Championships she led early, was in third entering the last round, but would eventually place fifth – just 5cm from the podium. She was also third and fourth in two Diamond League appearances. 

In April 2023 she defended her National title then won in Yokohama in May. On June 30 there was another leap forward by Mackenzie, winning the Lausanne Diamond League with a 1.43m PB of 65.70m. Two weeks later she was second at the Skolimowska DL with her second longest throw of 64.50m. In contrast to Eugene, at the 2023 world championships in the last round she moved from sixth to third. She closed the season with third in the Diamond League final and third ranked in the world.

Her early 2024 campaign has concluded wins at the Australian and Oceania championships, second at the Suzhou Diamond League and a best mark of 62.12m.

After graduating in November 2023, Mackenzie now works as a fulltime doctor in Royal North Shore hospital in Sydney.