Irish hammer hope Tuthill reaps home farm advantage

BOCHUM - It is a problem familiar to many parents of sports-mad offspring: what to do when your child’s hobby means the other children must bide their time in the back of the car?

For Irish student-athlete Nicola Tuthill, the routine and rigours of hammer throwing became so testing for the rest of the family, a radical rethink was needed.

“When I was doing my junior certificate at school, my mum was driving me to and from training and it was taking quite a long time,” Tuthill, 21, told the FISU Games News Service during a break in her preparations for Rhine-Ruhr 2025.

“I would occasionally get hammers stuck in the cage, and we would then have to find a ladder to get them down. While all of this was going on, my two sisters would be trying to do their homework in the car.

“So my mum spoke to my dad, and he and a few of his friends built a cage for me. I've been training there ever since.”

Home throws

To make the cage, Tuthill’s father poured a concrete base and then hung old fishing nets from poles stood around it. Perfect for practising her swings – but what about where the 3kg balls would land? Aged 15 at the time, she was already sending her hammers close to 60 metres.

Fortunately for Tuthill, the family home is a 120-hectare dairy farm in County Cork. And while most teenagers might need to clamber over the garden fence to retrieve a lost football or stray frisbee, the aspiring Olympian had other 'neigh-bours’ to worry about: her two ponies, Holly and Polo.

“Honestly, they have gotten used to it now,” she says, wryly. “I usually locked them down the far side of the field to make sure they were not where the hammers would be landing. But now, if they see me coming with hammers, they head to the far side of the field anyway.”

The way Tuthill has been throwing, the family may soon need a bigger farm. Shattering national records as she progressed through the junior ranks, she surprised even herself by qualifying for last summer’s Olympic Games in Paris, where she only narrowly missed out on the final despite being the youngest competitor in a world class field.

“Paris was such an amazing experience, especially with me being so young,” she says. “I learned so much and it’s definitely something I will remember forever.”

Top form

Balancing a sporting career with her studies to become a teacher at UCD in Dublin, Tuthill will be bringing one key commodity to the Rhine-Ruhr 2025 FISU World University Games when she competes in the hammer final on Sunday: momentum.

She won gold at the European Throwing Cup in Cyprus in March, and extended her personal best to 71.71 metres in Finland in June. In the women's event, only Eileen O'Keefe has ever gone further for Ireland.

“I am delighted to have thrown a PB last month,” Tuthill says. “Training has been going really well and I've stayed pretty much injury free, so hopefully I can build on this as the season goes on and get more consistent over the 70-metre mark.

“As for coming to Rhine-Ruhr, I definitely wouldn’t say I’m the athlete to beat. There are lots of other girls who have thrown really far this year, so it'll be a very competitive field. I just hope to be consistent with my performance.

“I would love to have a few throws over 70 metres and maybe push out my PB, but it is a busy month with lots of competitions, so I'll just have to wait and see. It will definitely be a great experience for future competitions though, regardless of the result.”

Watch Tuthill take on the world as part of a packed athletics programme at the Lohrheidestadion in Bochum on Sunday 27 July. Book your seats here.

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Photo: © Shauna Clinton / Sportsfile