Paternain: three passports, one green card and an unexpected bronze medal

When Julia Paternain crossed the finish line of the women’s marathon at the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25, she was not thinking about medals. She was not even sure she had finished the race.

“I was terrified that wasn’t the finish,” she said later, laughing at her own disbelief. “I still thought maybe there was another 400 metres to go. I could not believe it. One of the officials had to tell me I was done.”

What she also did not know in that moment was that she had just rewritten Uruguay’s sporting history. In only her second marathon, the 25-year-old finished third in 2:27:23, claiming the country’s first ever medal at a senior global championships.

She did so in the stifling Tokyo heat, coming within 14 seconds of her personal best and national record of 2:27:09, a mark she set on her debut. Only two of the greatest distance runners of this era were able to beat her: Kenya’s Peres Jepchirchir, the Olympic champion in 2021, and Ethiopia’s Tigist Assefa, the marathon world record-holder and Olympic silver medallist. For a runner ranked 288th in the world entering the race, it was unthinkable.

Her story, though, is not only about a medal. Paternain is an athlete whose life stretches across continents, accents and allegiances.

“I have three passports and a green card,” she explained. “I was born in Mexico, my whole family is from Uruguay, and I grew up in England from the age of two. I’ve run for Great Britain before, at the European U23 Championships, and now I run for Uruguay.”

The decision to switch allegiances this year was more personal than political. After the race, she put it simply: 'mi sangre es uruguaya' (my blood is Uruguayan). Her parents were born there, many family members still live in Uruguay, and she grew up spending holidays in Montevideo, running around Parque Rodo.

“I don’t like mate,” she laughed, referencing the traditional herbal drink. “That’s the one thing – but apart from that, I’m Uruguayan.”

For a country of just over three million, fiercely proud of its sporting heritage but rarely visible on the global athletics stage, her medal felt overwhelming in the best way. Messages of support poured in, and she admitted it meant a lot to think of younger athletes back home seeing her on the podium. Uruguay is small, but it is “a country with a big heart,” and if her bronze proves anything, it is that “anyone can put in the work.”

The path that led her to this point was anything but linear. Paternain’s teenage years were spent in England, racing cross country and track for Cambridge & Coleridge, training under Mark Vile, and competing at English Schools. She was talented, but not a prodigy destined for medals. She moved to the United States to study and compete in the NCAA, first at Penn State, then at Arkansas.

“I was never an All-American,” she explained candidly. “I made it to NCAA Outdoors my freshman year, and then my career was kind of a mess.”

Covid disrupted her rhythm, while transfers and coaching changes left her uncertain. Eventually, she took a break from structured running altogether. She worked remotely, lived in California, and trained without a coach. “I was figuring out life, as you do when you graduate,” she said.

The turning point came almost by accident. Visiting a friend in Flagstaff, Arizona, she found herself drawn to the altitude, the trails and the running community. She met coach Jack Polerecky and his wife Dani, herself a runner and training partner, and linked up with James McKirdy’s training group.

“I started enjoying running again,” she said. “I raced a 10-miler, then a half marathon, and thought: OK, maybe I want to try a marathon.”

Her debut, in March this year, stunned even her. She ran 2:27:09 – a national record for Uruguay and a time that booked her ticket to the World Championships.

“I spoke with my coach the night before the race,” she said, reflecting on the build-up to Tokyo. “We had three goals: C goal was just to finish, because it was so hot and humid. B goal was maybe top 30. A goal was top eight. That was it.”

A medal? “Not even on the radar.”

Perhaps it helped. Not knowing where she was, not burdened by expectation, she ran free of pressure.

“If I had known, maybe I’d have tightened up, thought: ‘I’ve got a medal to lose,’” she admitted. “But I didn’t know, so I just kept going.”

In the way Paternain tells it, the marathon unfolded not with a plan for glory, but with a simple mantra: run her own race, mile by mile. Around halfway, she recalled, she could still see a group of 10 or 15 women ahead.

“Slowly that pack started to break up. I just tried to make sure each of my miles was consistent,” she said, eyes still glowing from disbelief. “Everyone else could do whatever they wanted, I didn’t care. I was just going to run my own race. Wherever I finished, I finished.”

She thought that meant somewhere around sixth, maybe fifth. Never third.

“I had no clue,” she repeated. “I just wanted to make sure I ran smart. I didn’t think about place.”

When she entered the stadium – sweat streaming, legs heavy, lungs burning – she still believed she was outside the medals. Only after she crossed the finish line did reality hit her – or, rather, a cameraman revealed it to her.

“I was in so much shock. Hence that video of me looking very confused,” she stated, grinning.

Uruguay had never seen one of its athletes on a World Championships podium. For Paternain, the bronze is not just her own. “I wouldn’t be here without my whole support team in Flagstaff, and without my parents, Gabriel and Graciela,” she said. “They’ve helped me through everything.” Her family remains small – “just 11 of us” – but close. “Representing this country is a pride,” she said. “It makes my parents very happy too.”

Paternain is refreshingly unpolished about the future. She does not talk of meticulously planned training cycles or exact targets. Asked what’s next, she shrugged.

“To be honest, I don’t know,” she replied. “The goal was to get here. If you’d asked me a year ago whether I’d even be running a marathon, I’d have said no. So right now, I’m taking it month by month. I even have to get three of my teeth out in the next few days.”

The longer-term dream is clear enough: the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.

“That’s the goal,” she admitted. But she does not linger on it yet. What shines through is not certainty but openness. She has already lived many lives – Mexico, England, the NCAA, California, Flagstaff – and each has shaped her into an athlete who runs without overthinking.

What does it mean, then, that Uruguay’s first World Championships medal came from a runner who didn’t know she was in third until told so? It means that history can be written in unexpected ways. It means that identity can be layered – Mexican-born, English-raised, US-trained, Uruguayan at heart. It means that sport, at its best, still belongs to those who run with joy and disbelief.

“I was just trying to run my race,” Paternain said, still sounding a little dazed. “I didn’t think about the medal. I just ran.”

And perhaps that is why, when she looked up in the Japan National Stadium and realised what she had done, the shock on her face told the truest story of all.

Ainhoa Serrano for World Athletics
Produced as part of the World Athletics Media Academy project