In-form Tuthill hoping homework will stand to her in Tokyo test

The Bandon native's development has been helped by a home-made throwing circle at her homeplace in Bandon

EASTERN PROMISE: Hammer thrower Nicola Tuthill pictured ahead of the World Athletics Championships which take place in Tokyo. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

When the horses see her coming, gear bag slung over the shoulder, they know it’s time to leave. Nicola Tuthill will walk out into the field alongside her family home in Bandon and step into the concrete throwing circle that her parents built for her six years ago, then launch a 4kg metal ball around 70 metres – something only a few dozen women in the world can manage.

“I'm just kind of taking over that field now,” she smiles, adding that her two horses “get locked down far away” when she’s practising her craft and have also “learned to stay out of the way.” It was 2019, her Junior Cert year, when Tuthill’s mother figured it’d be a good idea to save the time spent trekking across town to training and hatched plans to construct a hammer facility at home, with her father soon getting to work on it. Tuthill was then 15 and making waves as a thrower, having started her athletics career as a middle-distance runner.

The facility proved a saviour during the pandemic, with Tuthill throwing an Irish U-20 record of 60.04m at the 2020 nationals, aged just 17. Since then she’s improved every year, throwing 68.70m in 2023 and going over 70 metres for the first time last year, which helped land her a place at the Paris Olympics.

She was just 20 as she walked out in front of the packed stands at Stade de France, an experience that steeled her to come back even stronger in 2025. Tuthill already has three international medals in the bag this season: gold from the European Throwing Cup in March along with silvers from the European U-23 Championships and World University Games in July. And now it’s time for the big one: the Tokyo World Championships.

“I'm always hungry for more,” she says on a video call from Tokyo, where she relocated this week after a final training camp in Hong Kong. “I took a second, 100%, to appreciate (the medals) but then it was kind of straight back to training.”

Pictured at the Hamilton High School grads ball at Bandon was Aoife Tuthill and her sister Nicola Tuthill. Pic: Denis Boyle

After throwing 71.75m to break her Irish U-23 record and win her fourth national senior title last month, Tuthill went into a “heavy training block” and now the hay is in the barn. She’ll walk out into another Olympic stadium on Sunday morning for the qualification round ranked 21st of the 37 entries, with 12 women set to make the final. That’s possible for Tuthill, albeit improbable, though her mind is fixed only on producing her best.

“A PB would definitely be a pretty positive way to finish out that season,” she says. “It's been quite a long one, but a really good one for me. I'm definitely on the world stage now as a senior and I want to obviously perform well and hold my own.” 

Still just 21, she will face little external pressure, though Tuthill always holds herself to high standards. “I keep pressure on myself either way, which is good and bad. But I always kind of have goals set for myself and I always want to do myself and the country proud. Being out on the world stage wearing the Irish singlet, it's always very special.” 

This is her first World Championships and her first trip to Asia, the conditions in Tokyo a far cry from her usual training bases in Bandon and UCD, where she’s got two years left in a degree in secondary school teaching. “I got over the jet lag pretty quickly and I'm starting to slowly adjust to the weather, but it's a whole different type of heat out here,” she says. “The humidity is crazy, but everyone's in the same boat.” 

Joining her in Japan is her longtime coach, Killian Barry, along with her uncle and parents – six years after they made that hammer-throwing field of dreams a reality at home.

While the vast majority of the 28-strong Irish team are runners, Tuthill is among the few flying the flag for field eventers along with shot putter Eric Favors and heptathlete Kate O’Connor. “It is track and field, so it's nice to have athletes here that will be able to inspire people at home as well to do the field events.” 

The hammer, of course, is an event where Ireland has a rich history, the nation proving a factory for world-class throwers in the early 1900s, many of whom emigrated and won medals for the US. This isn’t a championship for Tuthill to challenge for a podium finish, but it should prove another key step up the ladder that could one day lead her into contender territory.

She’s the third youngest in the field and arrives in Tokyo after the best season of her career. The form is strong, the pressure is off. All that’s left is to channel all she learned across countless sessions back home, to again take her place among the world’s best and to just let fly.