The first-year doctor balancing gruelling shifts with an Olympic medal bid

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Mackenzie Little is a busy woman.

The 26-year-old HAS just graduated from medicine at Sydney University and is about to start her first full-time job as a doctor at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital.

Australian Olympian Mackenzie Little has qualified for Paris next year, but she’ll also be working full-time as a doctor.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

Being a first-year doctor is notoriously gruelling – long hours, overnight shifts and early morning starts. You’d be forgiven for thinking Little would have no spare time to do anything except eat and sleep.

But she has another project on her plate. She’s competing at the Olympics in Paris next year.

The 26-year-old javelin thrower has had an eventful few years. Between studying and training, she made her Olympic debut in 2021.

In 2022, she won a Commonwealth Games silver medal, and earlier this year she won bronze at the World Championships in Budapest.

Mackenzie Little celebrating after winning bronze at the World Athletics Championship in Budapest.Credit: AP

“That really was kind of the first time I really solidified myself as looking forward to Paris as one of the people who’s among the top girls,” she said. “I think that was one of the first times I knew I deserved that medal.”

Little has never considered putting medicine aside to devote more time to her sporting career, and said the two were actually “mutually beneficial”.

“I wouldn’t be prepared to drop medicine. Some people might suggest I take the year off and just focus on the Olympics, but I know that I wouldn’t compete well at the Olympics if all I did was just train,” she said.

“I did a European season [competition], I tried being a full-time athlete. I lived the life of getting up, training, eat, sleep, repeat, and it didn’t work.

“I wasn’t really happy, I didn’t compete my best, and I wasn’t feeling my best… When they’re both [medicine and athletics] going well, it kind of beautifully aligns, and I think they’re mutually beneficial.”

Lucky for Little, she’s already secured her spot for Paris next year, it means she doesn’t have to spend the summer chasing qualifying events.

Now freshly graduated and about to embark on her career in medicine, an Olympic medal is the next goal for Little. And, after the year she’s had, it’s not impossible.

“That’s not out of the question [Olympic medal], that’s absolutely within the realm of what I’ve been doing the previous seasons and how my career is progressing,” she said.

“There will certainly be challenges in the lead up with training and work and I just am going to try and confront those head on, and do the right thing by the patients, and work. I do think I can do both, and we’ll see how it goes in Paris.”

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