Julia Ratcliffe

Julia Ratcliffe (@jtotherat) is a New Zealand hammer thrower who has a PR over 70m and notable performances include placing 2nd at the commonwealth games, winning the NCAA title and coming 3rd in the world university games. We managed to get in contact with Julia and asked her a few questions…

Q. How did you get involved in athletics?

A. My dad got me into athletics when I was about 5 years old, as he used to coach high school athletics. I tried most of the events and I did alright at short hurdles when I was younger. However it became clear I wasn’t going to be a world class runner so Dad introduced me to the hammer when I was 11. I have been throwing ever since!

Q. How did you get involved in the American college system as a New Zealander?

I had a few high school friends that went to the US on sports scholarships so my dad put my performances on berecruited.com when I was a sophomore in high school to gauge how interested American colleges would be in recruiting me. I got offers from a few smaller colleges so started contacting coaches at colleges I wanted to go to. I ultimately chose Princeton because its a top school for studying economics, but also Connor McCullough (a top hammer thrower) was there for a while and I thought it would be awesome to train alongside him.

Q. How was your experience of the college system being an international athlete? Did you have problems happen because you were not at home?

My experience has been awesome. I love that the NCAA brings the team aspect back to track and field. My teammates welcomed me with open arms and gave me a home away from home. The coaches at Princeton have done their utmost to support me and they made the transition to training overseas very smooth. One thing that threw me off was having all my throws measured in feet and inches and translating all my lifting numbers to pounds! It does make your distances and weights sound a lot more impressive, though! Also we don’t get snow in my city so training indoors during the NJ winter was hard to adjust to at first.

We thank Julia for her answers!