Mackenzie Little over the moon with bronze medal but won’t be quitting her day job

Little juggles working in the emergency ward of the Royal North Shore Hospital, sometimes not as well as she would like, with trying to be an elite athlete on the world stage.

She says the frantic nature of dealing with the pressure of being a doctor actually helps her during competitions which is exactly what happened on Saturday night.

After delivering a monster throw on Friday at the start of qualifying (65.54m), Little did the same in the final, going big straight away with 63.58m.

She held the lead in the first round before eventual gold medallist Ecuador’s Juleisy Angulo threw 65.12m with her second throw.

Little looked headed for silver before Latvia’s Anete Sietina threw 64.64m with her last throw of the competition.

The surprise performance is Australia’s third bronze medal of the championships and the second of Little’s career after her third place in Budapest two years ago.

Little struggled in last year’s Paris Olympic final, eliminated after three rounds in the final to finish 12th.

“I couldn’t be happy with the medal, particularly if you’d spoken to me two days ago, to say that I had a medal today, I’d be just thrilled,” Little said.

“I feel like whenever you get caught up in trying to prove yourself through medals and things, you can go astray. This is just such a reward for myself for some really hard work, some really lonely work and I’d like to think it’s a bit of redemption from the Olympics and it’s more reflective of what I can do.”

The 28-year-old knows there are critics out there who question her choice of working full-time as a doctor.

“It’s easy to say I have this wonderful balance and they work together perfectly when I’ve got a nice medal around my neck,” Little said.

“But I have maintained, even when things have been hard after the Olympics, that this is best for me. I compete the best when I’m really happy and fulfilled in the other parts of my life and work is so fulfilling at the moment for me.

“It does make it hard though and there are some really big challenges, particularly when you work from 6.30 in the morning and then you’re rushing to get out by 6pm, knowing I’ll be an hour late to training, that’s really hard.

“I’ve had some really well meaning advice that I should step back from medicine and take athletics more seriously. I’ve thought about it, and I’ve decided that it’s not the path I want to take forward.

“After the Olympics, it was devastating and it was really hard to maintain that sense of self belief and maintain that motivation for training. I felt like it took me months after Paris to really get back into it again.”

Little is going to the Philippines with her family for the next week before reporting back to night shift in Sydney where the life balance begins again.