Even as the rain pelts down in Penrith, Tara Simpson-Sullivan is happy to be home. “In the States now, especially Houston, it’s very warm – like, 45 degrees,” she smiles. “Just being able to breathe without feeling like you’re dying is good…”
Time back in drizzly Cumbria is a welcome interlude for Simpson-Sullivan before she returns to Texas, where she combines her studies at Rice University with her progress as an outstanding hammer thrower.
The weekend we meet, she is moving on from a disappointing outing at the British Championship. A week later, Simpson-Sullivan enjoyed a better day at the English Senior Championships by winning a bronze medal. Soon it will be back to America for her final university year.
At 22 her progress in the sport has been considerable, earning her the British title in 2021 and a series of accolades in the Conference-USA athletics scene, including, recently, the female field athlete of the year award.
It is currently a case of trying to maintain and strengthen that progress, whilst enjoying a “reset” in the milder Cumbrian air. “I used to live out at Lowther and I like to go out there sometimes, next to the river, and read,” she says. “There’s nobody around, it’s so serene. I just sit there and that’s my time.”
Simpson-Sullivan also plunged into Ullswater soon after returning. “I don’t see my friends very often, and they don’t see each other too often because they’re all at uni – it was just a chance to get together again. And what better way to have an ice bath to go and dip in a lake!
“There’s a couple of other places I want to go that I’ve seen on Instagram that look beautiful.”
Social media is a fascinating part of Simpson-Sullivan’s story too, but before getting there we chart her athletics journey. She was a multi-talented girl at Ullswater Community College in Penrith before fate pointed her towards the hammer.
“I was always sporty, doing everything, and I was about 14 when I was in a competition, doing long jump, hurdles, high jump – the ones everyone knows. The team manager was like, ‘Tara, will you go throw the hammer?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, but what is the hammer?!’ I remember lobbing my spikes off, running down this hill and throwing the hammer.
“There were people there to show me how to do it. I did…not great. I threw about 18m. But the thing was, I really enjoyed it.”
Over the next few weeks Simpson-Sullivan improved remarkably and qualified for the English Schools Championships. “At that, I fouled out. That first year was very rocky and nothing was perfect. It’s one of those sports that people say takes ten years to master, because the technique’s so difficult.
“I’ve been in it eight to nine years now, so I’m getting on that precipice. But if you ask who the credit goes to, Angela Busby will say it was her, because she was that team manager…”
Simpson-Sullivan initially trained at Carlisle before switching to Wigan, where another Cumbrian hammer thrower, Bethan Lishman, was honing her skills. “During that time, I was starting to understand the event a bit more and really see my potential.”
After leaving Ullswater at 16, she went to Newton Rigg College to do a BTec. It was there that she was introduced to the possibilities for British students with a sporting aptitude to join American universities. The idea appealed to her. “An agency who had experience in athletics came along and sent my profile out to a couple of schools. I visited two in December 18 – Rice, and Washington State. Texas was pretty warm, then I landed in Washington and it was snowing. I was like, ‘I can have that at home if I want…’”
Simpson-Sullivan chose Rice, starting in August 2019. “I struggled at first with the weather and academically,” she admits. “But one of the nice things that happened was that Rice do a prep for all the international students before you go to the whole school orientation. I met my four best friends there and we helped each other along.”
She settled into student and athletics life in Texas. “In 2020, we’d had indoor season, which was great. Then as we were preparing for outdoor season, Covid hit and threw a spanner in the works.”
As school closed, Simpson-Sullivan flew home and spent six months studying remotely while her hammer training was also limited. Upon returning to America, life involved stringent testing and mask-wearing in practice. It was not the sort of preparation any athlete would have designed, yet Simpson-Sullivan made leaps in 2021.
“It was an interesting transition period for me,” she says. “It was like I’d had this long rest to rethink about everything, recognising this was my time to knuckle down. The 2021 season was the best I’ve had in my life.
"Before I went to the US I hadn’t even thrown 60m. To go from 59.71 to 68 in two years was a big jump.”
Simpson-Sullivan considered the psychological aspects of returning from an elongated break to perform at unprecedented personal levels. With the help of her coaches at Rice, she learned more about mindset, about visualisation and about staying relaxed before competition. She then came home and, in her debut at the British Championships, became national champion.
“I didn’t think it would happen on my senior debut,” she says. “During the competition, I was in second before my last throw. Anyone who’s watched me compete knows my last throw is often my best. In fact there’s a saying, ‘Last throw, best throw’ – you go in, clear your head, you’re already in a medal position, and it’s now or never…
“I didn’t think it was very good as I came out of the circle, but my friends saw the result before I did. And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve just thrown myself into first place’. Her remaining rival could not beat her attempt and so Simpson-Sullivan was champion. “My mind went blank,” she smiles.
She enjoyed the thrill of such a victory, but it was also accompanied by new pressures. “It was a target on my back, I think,” she says. “I felt a lot of people were now thinking, ‘She’s come from nowhere, done this big thing once – what’s the future gonna look like for her?’ There were a lot of people’s eyes on me that year. It was a lot of pressure for me going into the next year, just trying to maintain that standard.”
Simpson-Sullivan says she was able to “park” that pressure when she returned to the States and rejoined her training group, who keep her grounded. Since then, she has been developing her craft and trying to recognise that leaps forward, such as that she made in 2021, do not come every year.
“We always say that progress isn’t linear,” she says. “I wouldn’t have said things have gone backwards since then, more slowly upwards. Not quite a plateau but, even though my distances aren’t quite improving, my mentality towards the sport and understanding of it has improved drastically.
“I’ve also got better at finding outlets to relax, so when I go to training and competitions I can be my best self. My nerves used to be all over the shop – now I feel I have those in control.”
Simpson-Sullivan says she relies on her friends and hobbies such as reading and ‘thrifting’ – scouring stores for second-hand clothing. “Things that bring you back to being a 22-year-old. Going over to our friends’ house, watching a film, goofing around, being silly for a while.”
She insists she is “not fussed” that her athletics demands limit how much partying she can do at university, and put a cap on the adrenaline activities she would like to do, “like bungee jumping”. “In summer, I’d love to go on holiday, but I can’t because I’m still in season for competitions” she adds.
“But this is the time, to do athletics and really commit to it, that I’m never gonna get back. I can always go and do those other things afterwards.”
Simpson-Sullivan, who initially studied psychology before switching to sport management with a focus on leadership, is preparing for her last year at Rice. Upon graduating she will target the British Championships again and strive for Olympics qualification as well as a future as a professional athlete.
“A lot of that rides on sponsors and winning at meets,” she says. “Hammer’s not in a lot of these big meets in the Diamond League, where you get a lot of money.” She speaks to other athletes about the possible road ahead, and says the period between Olympic years, 2024 to 2028, will be pivotal to her bid to secure this future for herself.
Should she fulfil the Olympic dream in either of those years, what would it mean? “I think it would take a very long time to put into words,” she smiles. “There would be a bit of shock for a while. It’s something any young sports person wants to do. You don’t think of it too much until you’re in a position where it could be possible.
“In terms of goals…70m is a big thing for me. To throw over that would be huge. But to get in the mix for Olympics selection next year, I’m gonna have to throw over 72-73m.”
Simpson-Sullivan says a major role model during her teenage athletics years was Jessica Ennis-Hill, and says “half of being an athlete” is about inspiring youngsters to go forward into the sport. She is also conscious of sending out other positive messages on social media.
The last two years have seen Simpson-Sullivan transform the way she views herself and allows others to see her. She is an advocate for body positivity, and the importance of the female form not to be seen strictly through the Instagram prism of slimline perfection.
Simpson-Sullivan says that, any time beforehand, she would never have dared posting pictures such as the one she uploaded of herself smiling in a bikini in the sea at Key Biscane in 2021. “In person I felt very confident but when it came to photos I was, ‘Ooh, I don’t know…’
“I don’t know what flipped me but I remember, after looking at them, thinking, ‘Well, why should I not post them?’ I was having a great time, it’s fun, I’m with my friends, I’m in Miami…
“I posted them, and was very vulnerable and open about how I was feeling.”
The number of interactions her post received reinforced a new way of using the social platform. “People still message me now saying they are thankful for what I post. Things like that make it really worth it.”
This has been a journey in itself for the Cumbrian. “I had to go through a lot of people I was following and unfollow them. It wasn’t good for my mental health,” she says. “Now I try to follow people that inspire me, that I’m genuinely interested in, so that I minimise the amount of negativity that I see on my feed.”
Did she take inspiration from others online? “Not necessarily from athletes, because before that I wasn’t really aware of bigger athletes – you just see these small, slim sprinters – but I did follow influencers that were mid-size or plus-size, who talked about stepping into a space that was predominantly for skinnier people. I followed some models who were in Miami Swim Week, saying, ‘There’s not a lot of people here who look like me, but here I am’.
“I’m like, ‘Ok, there’s not a lot of people that look like me, but let me step into this space’. It’s still a little nerve-wracking, because you’re opening up to comment and criticism, but the way I view myself has drastically changed over the past two years.”
This also benefits her as an athlete. “I think it allows me just to do what’s best for my body as an athlete rather than think too much about how my body looks. At the end of the day, I have to put myself in the best possible situation to throw this 4kg ball on a wire…”
This more settled state of mind makes it seem like another leap in performance should be in Simpson-Sullivan’s reach. As we look out onto Penrith’s rain, we chat about Texas. “Apparently you can fit three Englands into Texas,” she says, in the American accent she has picked up from three years Stateside.
“I’ve been to the cities, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, although I can’t say I’ve seen too much of the old style Texas – no tumbleweed rolling down, no cowboys. Although my friend has longhorn cattle, so I see those…”
Upon returning to Cumbria, Simpson-Sullivan was invited to Ullswater Community College to present some of the school’s sports awards, including sports personality of the year award – a prize of which she was the first winner some eight years ago.
“It was quite surreal going back, nice to reminisce” she says. “I couldn’t be more thankful to Ullswater, especially the PE department. It doesn’t feel like two seconds after I left.”
As well as the backing of her family – her mum lives at Pennyhill, with her grandmother, while her sister is in Leeds – Simpson-Sullivan takes plenty of Cumbrian support with her when she competes. Although still young, she is well aware of how she can be a leading light for others. “For me, I looked at people like Nick Miller and Tom Farrell as huge athletics stars from this area, and they implemented the idea I could actually do that,” she says.
“I hope, as I progress through the sport, I can inspire some of the younger kids. It doesn’t matter if you’re from a small town in the north of England. You can still go on to do big things.”
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