Nicolette D’Onofrio

Sprint Hurdler & Sprinter | 100m Hurdles | Australia | Born: April 5, 2002

Fast From the Start

Nicolette D’Onofrio was, by her own description and the assessment of those who coached her early, simply one of those kids who moved differently. Faster. More electric. She grew up in New South Wales, and by the time she was a teenager she was already representing Australia on international soil, dominating age-group sprints, and catching the attention of Athletics NSW’s most selective development program. She is now 24 years old, training full-time on the Gold Coast in Queensland, holding what she describes as an Oceania record in the 60 metres hurdles, and building toward the ultimate targets she has set for herself: the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, and the World Athletics Championships.

Her path from a fast kid in NSW to a professional sprint hurdler is not without complexity — injuries, a pandemic that disrupted a crucial period of her development, and the long, grinding work of turning natural speed into high-performance hurdles technique. But Nicolette D’Onofrio is still rising, and the people backing her journey believe she is not close to her ceiling yet.

Roots and Background: New South Wales, a Sporting Family

Nicolette D’Onofrio was born on April 5, 2002, in New South Wales, Australia. Her management biography notes that she comes from “a family of elite athletes” — a lineage that helped establish both her competitive instincts and the work ethic she developed from an early age. She trained five days a week from a young age, a schedule that speaks to how seriously her development was taken and how willingly she embraced the demands of high-performance sport.

She was registered with the UTS Northern Suburbs athletics club in New South Wales — the “UTN” prefix that appears in NSW athletics results, one of the state’s established club programs. Athletics NSW is one of Australia’s most competitive state athletics environments, and the UTS Northern Suburbs club has produced a number of nationally competitive athletes over the years.

Early Youth Career: Speed, Multi-Event Talent, and the Australia Tour

Nicolette’s emergence as a standout youth athlete was rapid. In 2017, when she was 14 and 15 years old, she captured the attention of the Australian youth athletics scene with a cluster of performances that announced real potential. That year she won the Australian Under 16 years 200 metres championship — a national age-group title that placed her among the fastest young female sprinters in the country. She also won the NSW Little Athletics 100 metres championship in her age group, adding regional dominance to national credentials.

The 2017 season also brought recognition at the local level: she was named the UTS Northern Suburbs Under 16 years female athlete of the year — an honour that reflected not just her results but the consistency and commitment she brought to her training.

Perhaps the most impressive individual highlight of 2017 was an international representative trip to Canada. Competing on behalf of Australia at a youth meet, Nicolette entered eight events and won all eight. She also set five meet records. It was the kind of performance that leaves an impression — an undefeated tour against international youth competition, executed with the comprehensive dominance that coaches notice and remember. Her management agency described her at this time as possessing “a steely will to win” combined with a “bright personality and a cheeky disposition” — and noted that she was “always gracious in defeat and humble in victory,” though on the Canada tour she gave her opponents limited opportunity to test the former quality.

On the back of this run of form, she was admitted into the Athletics NSW Target Program — the state’s junior high-performance development squad. Crucially, she qualified in both sprints and hurdles, signalling that even in her mid-teens, she was versatile enough and accomplished enough in multiple disciplines to be tracked through two event streams simultaneously.

Management and Early Professional Support

The calibre of Nicolette’s early promise was underlined when she secured representation with Robert Joske Management — a Sydney-based agency that also represents Sally Pearson OAM, Australia’s most celebrated sprint hurdler, a two-time World Champion and 2012 London Olympic gold medallist. Being on the same management roster as Pearson at such a young age was a meaningful signal of the professional circles she was beginning to move in.

Her management profile, written during this formative period, described her as having “massive potential” and noted that her “two main aims” were “to be on the podiums at future Olympic Games and the World Championships.” Those aims have remained consistent with everything she has done since.

The Transition to Sprint Hurdles and the Senior Circuit

As Nicolette moved through the late teenage years, her event profile sharpened toward the 100 metres hurdles. The sprint hurdles are a natural fit for athletes who combine pace with athleticism — the 100 metres hurdles requires ten barriers to be cleared over a distance that elite athletes complete in under thirteen seconds, demanding not only outright speed but explosive lift, technical rhythm, and the mental composure to execute precise movements at maximum velocity. For an athlete who had always had raw speed and the physical tools to match, the event made sense.

Her World Athletics profile records a 200 metres personal best of 24.83 seconds, set on September 28, 2018 — a time that documents a solid base of flat sprint speed that underpins her hurdles work.

The Australian Junior Track and Field Championships in 2020-21 saw her post 13.96 seconds in the 100 metres hurdles — with a wind reading of +2.4 metres per second — to finish second at the national junior championships. The result, recorded in the Australian Athletics history database, represents her first nationally catalogued senior-era hurdles result, and finishing runner-up at the national junior level at age 18 confirmed she was tracking in the right direction.

The Indoor Season and the 2022 Personal Bests

Australia’s indoor athletics scene is smaller than its outdoor counterpart, but it provides valuable early-season competition. The World Athletics profile for Nicolette D’Onofrio shows that January 2022 produced her indoor 60 metres personal best of 7.72 seconds — a mark she set on January 15, 2022. She followed that with 7.79 in a later indoor competition on March 12, 2022. Both marks remain her documented indoor bests and indicate she possessed genuine flat sprint speed to complement her hurdles development.

Her outdoor personal best in the 100 metres flat stands at 12.07 seconds, set November 15, 2020. That time — twelve seconds and seven hundredths — is a genuinely competitive sprint time and underlines the raw acceleration she brings to the barriers. It takes a real sprinter to run 12.07 in the flat, and the connection between flat speed and hurdle clearance time is direct: athletes who run fast between the barriers run fast overall.

2025: A Personal Best in the Hurdles

The 2025 outdoor season delivered what, at the time of writing, stands as her confirmed outdoor 100 metres hurdles personal best. On April 13, 2025, Nicolette D’Onofrio clocked 13.87 seconds in the 100 metres hurdles — a mark registered on her World Athletics profile as her official personal best in the event. It was a significant result, placing her within range of the performances needed to build toward national-level selection conversations.

The 2026 season has brought further improvement. Her World Athletics profile now shows a 100 metres hurdles mark of 13.70 seconds, set on March 15, 2026 — a new personal best of 0.17 seconds, the kind of improvement in a single performance that indicates real forward momentum. The 60 metres hurdles mark of 8.53, set February 7, 2026, also represents recent competitive activity, and a wind-aided 100 metres time of 11.94 (March 8, 2026) underlines the sprint speed that continues to develop beneath her hurdles work. Her 60 metres time of 7.70, set December 12, 2025, is also among the most recent marks on her profile.

The “Road to 28” and Community Support

In February 2026, Nicolette took a step that speaks to both the financial realities of elite athletics and the depth of her local community support. She hosted a fundraising event called “Road to 28” at the Hunters Hill Club in Sydney on February 21, 2026 — a fundraising evening aimed at supporting her ambitions of competing at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, future Commonwealth Games, and World Athletics Championships.

The event had a notable special guest: Sally Pearson OAM herself, the Olympic champion and multiple world champion in the 100 metres hurdles, who attended and participated alongside Nicolette. The connection between the two athletes through Robert Joske Management made Pearson’s involvement a natural one, but the gesture also reflected something deeper — the kind of investment an established champion makes in a younger athlete she sees genuine promise in.

The Hunters Hill Club — which describes Nicolette as “one of our own members” — framed the evening as a chance to support a local athlete on her journey to the world’s biggest stages. Tickets, a live auction, and an evening with Nicolette sharing her goals and her story made it both a fundraiser and a statement of intent. The community’s response to the evening is a reminder that elite athletics in Australia, at a level below the Diamond League and Olympic podium, is still often sustained by exactly this kind of grassroots support.

The Oceania Record and the “Former National Sprint Champion” Credential

On her personal coaching and training website, feelfitwithnic.com.au, Nicolette describes herself as “Elite Athlete (Sprint Hurdles) | Personal Trainer | Former National Sprint Champion | Oceania Record Holder.” Her LinkedIn profile similarly references her as “Former Sprint Champion | Record Holder” and a “Brand Ambassador at Black Sheep Theory.”

The reference to a national sprint title is consistent with her 2017 Australian Under 16 200 metres championship, which remains one of the headline achievements of her youth career. The Oceania record claim relates to the 60 metres hurdles — an indoor event in which Oceania has historically limited depth, given the relatively small number of indoor-capable facilities in the region. This context matters: Oceania records in some indoor disciplines reflect genuine achievement in events where the regional competitive pool is smaller than in Europe or North America.

Gold Coast, Personal Training, and the Dual Career

Nicolette now lives and trains on the Gold Coast in Queensland — a base that puts her in the same general geography as many of Australia’s elite track athletes, given the Queensland Athletics network and the year-round training conditions the southeast Queensland climate allows. Her LinkedIn profile lists her location as “Gold Coast, QLD” and describes her professional identity as “Elite Athlete | Events Trainer | Former Sprint Champion | Record Holder | Brand Ambassador at Black Sheep Theory.”

She runs a personal training and online coaching business under the brand feelfitwithnic.com.au, offering training programs, online coaching, and corporate events using movement and fitness as a framework for team-building. Client testimonials on the site describe meaningful transformations in body composition, fitness, and confidence. The business is described as being based in Southport, QLD.

This dual professional life — elite athlete and personal trainer/coach — is entirely typical of athletes operating at Nicolette’s level within the Australian athletics system. Outside of the very top tier of Australian track and field (which receives centralised AIS or national federation funding), athletes must often generate their own income, and building a coaching or training brand is a practical and sustainable way to do that while staying embedded in the world of high-performance sport.

She identifies as a brand ambassador for Black Sheep Theory, a brand connection that she has maintained in her professional social media presence.

Personal Bests and Statistics

As of March 2026, Nicolette D’Onofrio’s confirmed competitive marks, sourced from her World Athletics profile, include the following:

• 100 metres hurdles: 13.70 — March 15, 2026 (personal best)
• 60 metres hurdles (indoor): 8.53 — February 7, 2026
• 60 metres (indoor): 7.70 — December 12, 2025
• 60 metres (indoor): 7.72 — January 15, 2022
• 100 metres: 12.07 — November 15, 2020
• 100 metres (wind-aided): 11.94 — March 8, 2026
• 200 metres: 24.83 — September 28, 2018
• World Athletics athlete code: 14723827
• Current World Athletics ranking: #660 (100m hurdles)

The progression in her hurdles times — from 13.96 (wind-aided) as a junior in 2021, to 13.87 in April 2025, to 13.70 in March 2026 — is a positive trend. Each iteration has brought her closer to the times that will matter for qualification conversations, and the 13.70 represents the most competitive hurdles mark of her career.

Competitive Context: Australian Women’s 100m Hurdles

To place Nicolette D’Onofrio’s marks in context, Australian women’s 100 metres hurdles is a competitive event with a strong recent history. Sally Pearson holds the Australian and Oceanian record with 12.28 seconds, a time that remains one of the fastest ever run and won her the 2012 London Olympic gold medal and two World Championship titles. In 2024, the Australian team at the Paris Olympics included Michelle Jenneke, Liz Clay, and Celeste Mucci — athletes whose personal bests range from the high 12s to the low 13s. The gap between 13.70 and that national elite tier is real, but it is not unbridgeable. Athletes at 13.70 who are still developing technique, getting faster in the flat, and building competitive race experience regularly make the kind of jumps that put them into the 13.3–13.5 range that borders serious national team contention.

For Nicolette, the trajectory since 2025 is moving in the right direction, and at 24, she is entering the age window where sprint hurdlers often produce their best marks.

Social Media and Brand Presence

Nicolette D’Onofrio maintains an active professional presence across several platforms. Her personal training and coaching business is accessible at feelfitwithnic.com.au, which also serves as her primary athlete brand platform. On LinkedIn, she is listed under her full name and describes herself as “Elite Athlete | Events Trainer | Former Sprint Champion | Record Holder.” She serves as a brand ambassador for Black Sheep Theory. Her Robert Joske Management profile provides additional professional biographical detail for media and commercial inquiries.

What Comes Next

Nicolette D’Onofrio has been direct and consistent about what she is aiming for. The “Road to 28” framing tells the story plainly: the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games are the horizon, with Commonwealth Games and World Athletics Championships as milestones along the way. These are ambitious targets, and she holds them without apology.

What she has going for her is significant. A natural sprint base that produced 12.07 in the flat 100 metres at age 18. A personal best in the hurdles that has moved from 13.96 as a teenager to 13.70 in 2026, with signs that further improvement is available. A work ethic that has been noted by coaches and managers since she was a teenager. Professional management with deep connections to the Australian athletics community. And a clear-eyed understanding of what it takes to build toward the top level — not just athletically, but financially and structurally.

The sport has a way of rewarding athletes who build steadily and stay healthy. The next two years, leading into the Commonwealth Games cycle and then Los Angeles, will tell the story of whether Nicolette D’Onofrio’s hurdles times can reach the range that puts the national team conversation within reach. On current trajectory, the answer is at least worth watching for.

Born: April 5, 2002 | State: New South Wales (trains Gold Coast, QLD) | Events: 100m Hurdles (primary), 60m Hurdles, 100m | 100mH PB: 13.70 (March 2026) | 100m PB: 12.07 (2020) | World Athletics ID: 14723827 | Website: feelfitwithnic.com.au | Management: Robert Joske Management | Brand Ambassador: Black Sheep Theory | 2017 Australian U16 200m Champion | NSW Little Athletics 100m Champion | 2017 UTS Northern Suburbs U16 Female Athlete of the Year | Athletics NSW Target Program (sprints & hurdles)