Mackenzie Little won a silver medal in the women’s javelin on debut at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
The javelin thrower 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, she 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.