Tuthill improvised training during injury helped get PB at World U20s

Nicola Tuthill has taken a giant leap forward over the past 12 months, all the more impressive given that in March last year, she dislocated and fractured her elbow when a throw went badly wrong at an event in Portugal.

PERSONAL BEST: Nicola Tuthill recently smashed the Irish U-23 record, throwing 67.85m at the European Team Championships in Poland. Pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

It’s an event in which Ireland has a rich history, from the ‘Irish whales’, a group of migrants who dominated Olympic throwing events, representing USA, in the early 1900s, to the most decorated Irish Olympian of all, Pat O’Callaghan, who won two golds at the 1928 and 1932 Games.

The hammer throw, of course, is an event the Irish actually invented, its origins tracing back to the Tailteann Games in 1600BC, with stories passed down that Cuchulainn had gripped a chariot wheel by its axle, whirled it around his head, and thrown it a whopping distance.