When she entered the warm-up area before the preliminary rounds of the 800 meters at this year’s U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials, Juliette Whittaker felt intimidated.
She was 20 years old and just finished her sophomore year at Stanford University. There in front of her were stars like Noah Lyles and Sha’Carri Richardson. She wasn’t even sure where to set down her bag, adorned with the butterfly keychain her mom had given her.
Soon enough, she found just the spot: next to a bag with a bee keychain, representing the other half of Muhammad Ali’s famous phrase “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” It belonged to her sister Isabella, Bella for short, a recent University of Pennsylvania graduate about to compete in the 400 meters.
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As they shook out their legs and prepared for their races, the sisters smiled and waved. “It was a comforting feeling to know she was right there with me through it all,” Juliette said. “We had each other to lean on.”
With even more family cheering from the stands, Bella, 22, was sixth in the 400 meters in 50.68, earning a spot in the women’s relay pool. And Juliette placed third with a personal best 1:58.45 to make Team USA in the 800 meters.
Now, the Whittasisters—as they often called themselves—will support each other through another monumental meet: the Paris Olympics. “In big moments like this, it’s uncomfortable to feel the pressure, feel the nerves,” Bella said.
But sharing the experience with a sibling and best friend calls to mind simpler times, the sisters say, bringing joy in a way that ultimately improves their performances.
From the Pool to the Track
Juliette and Bella grew up in Laurel, Maryland, with running in their blood. Their mom, Jill Pellicoro, was a 400-meter hurdler at Georgetown University; their dad, Paul Whittaker, ran the 800 meters there. He’s now the track coach at Mount de Sales Academy in nearby Catonsville, the high school the sisters attended.
While their parents hoped Juliette and Bella might run in the future, they didn’t want them to start too young and burn out. Swimming offered an athletic alternative, one the girls enjoyed and excelled at. Their seven years in the pool gave them each an impressive aerobic base, a go-to cross-training method, and an appreciation for hard work and discipline.
“Swimming is probably the hardest sport,” Juliette said. The training was grueling, and then there were the meets—they might race at four different distances in one morning, and if they made the finals, do it again that evening. “Now, after every workout, we have a recovery day where we just have to run a few miles easy. We never got that in swimming.”
But running was always in the background, and glimmers of talent appeared early. In fifth grade, Juliette joined Girls on the Run, which finished with a 5K. Paced by her older brother Alex—who was running high school track and cross-country and would go on to run at Yale—Juliette won her first official race by a huge margin, in a time she remembers as close to 21 minutes. “Immediately after that, she had to go to a swim meet, where she qualified for state,” Pellicoro said.
In middle school, swimming was still their primary sport, but the sisters dabbled in cross-country. Bella would beat most of the boys in their small private school league. “Then Juliette came onto the team, and she beat me,” Bella said.
The Whittakers began to take running seriously in high school.
Her freshman year, Bella split a fast time in the 4x400-meter relay, which led her to shift toward sprinting. She balanced track and swimming at first, but by her junior year, she knew running was her future. “It’s hard to not give it 100 percent,” Bella said. “By swimming, I couldn’t give track 100 percent. I made the switch over and never looked back.”
Juliette, burned out on swimming, followed Alex and Bella onto the track and quickly found her spot in the middle distances. As a high school freshman, she ran 2:05.25 to finish second in the 800 meters at New Balance Nationals Outdoor. Her junior year, she qualified for the 2021 Trials; she made the semifinals, where she placed 10th in 2:01.30, missing the final by just one spot. (Bella was at the Trials, too, though she didn’t advance to the semifinal round of the 400 meters.)
In May 2022, Juliette became only the second high school girl to run faster than 2 minutes in the 800 meters, clocking 1:59.51 at the Trials of Miles Track Night NYC. The next month, she broke Mary Cain’s high school 800-meter record when she won the USATF U20 Outdoor Championships in 1:59.04. That qualified her for the World U20 Championships in Cali, Colombia, where she ran 2:00.18 to win bronze.
Support, Near and Far
After years of sharing a bedroom, the sisters’ collegiate careers took them to opposite coasts. Between the time difference, packed schedules, and Juliette’s notoriously poor texting—“I’m very much an in-person person,” she said—their conversations became far less frequent.
But when they do catch up for a FaceTime or call, it might last three hours. “The quality of the time spent is what’s important to us,” Bella said.
As their running careers progressed, they’ve seen each other through highs and lows. During her sophomore year at Penn, Bella developed a stress fracture in her back and couldn’t run for six months. The way she navigated her setbacks, with determination and grit, left Juliette inspired. “She fully believed that she was going to get back to where she was and go further,” Juliette said.
Meanwhile, in Bella’s lower moments, seeing her younger sister bravely racing everyone from high school rivals to professionals buoyed her spirits. “She always puts herself out there, no matter who she’s running against,” Bella said. “I was struggling, and I kind of lost my fitness and my competitive drive a little bit in the middle. Watching her compete allowed me to find that back.”
They’ve stayed on top of each other’s competition schedules, texting words of motivation beforehand and streaming or constantly refreshing results pages during races. When Pellicoro is watching one of them in person—she’s a pediatrician, and dedicates her few days off to attending their meets—the other might call as soon as the race ends.
This year, with Bella healthy again and Juliette’s star still on the rise, many of those conversations were celebratory. The elder Whittaker started her senior season by breaking Ivy League records in the indoor 400 meters (51.69 seconds) and 500 meters (1:10.12). Juliette, meanwhile, won the 2024 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in the 800 meters in a meet-record 1:59.53.
They rarely raced in the same competition during the outdoor season but reunited at the 2024 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships—spotting each other from afar thanks to the bee and butterfly balloons sticking out of their backpacks. Bella ran a personal best 50.17 to place fifth in the 400 meters, while Juliette stormed to a 1:59.61 victory in the 800 meters.
That brought them to the Trials, two weeks later. In addition to greeting each other during warm-ups, the sisters watched all of each other’s races, even if they had to do so from the media area underneath the track.
The pressure of the high-stakes competition peaked for the family on Sunday, June 23. Juliette placed fourth in the first and most competitive semifinal in the 800 meters, where only the first two automatically moved ahead to the final round. That meant waiting through the other two races to see if she’d advance based on time.
Fortunately, they learned she’d move on shortly before Bella took to the track for her final. Relieved of the stress she’d felt for her sister, Bella passed two runners in the final 100 meters, securing the sixth-place finish she suspected would earn her a spot on the relay squad.
And then, of course, there was the dramatic 800-meter final. The Whittaker cheering squad spread out in different sections of Hayward Field, so Juliette would have support all around the track. Bella was situated near where defending Olympic champion Athing Mu fell, threatening to take others down with her.
That offered Bella a close-up view of Juliette as she did a quick ballet step around the tangle of legs and charged ahead. “She was really composed,” Bella said. “She was unfazed. I was like, ‘Okay, she’s locked in.’” Juliette then followed eventual winner Nia Akins when she surged ahead in the final 200 meters. Although Allie Wilson passed Juliette shortly before the line, she hung on for a personal best time and the final Olympic spot.
As soon as the race finished, Bella sprinted to the finish line to meet Juliette and the rest of the family. That night, she moved into the Airbnb Juliette was sharing with Stanford teammates. Crashing in the same king-size bed, “we stayed up yapping too late into the night” about Juliette’s Olympic dream come true.
Bella wouldn’t find out for sure she’d join her sister on Team USA until she was already at the Portland airport, about to head home. As she was checking her bags, her coach called with the news. She instantly dialed her mom and sister, who screamed and cried with her from afar. “We wanted her to get all the glory and everything, and she’s in the middle of an airport,” Pellicoro said. “We made a fuss over her anyway.”
Now, the entire immediate family and a stacked field of other supporters—including Bella’s girlfriend and the sisters’ grandmother, who rarely flies—will head to Paris. Bella will find out before or during the competition if she’ll race in the women’s or mixed 4x400-meter relay. Juliette, meanwhile, has her eyes on making the 800-meter final, something she knows will likely take another personal best.
At times during the Trials, especially in the semifinals, she found herself racing timidly—hesitating around Olympic medalists like Raevyn Rogers or Athing Mu. But with her sister nearby, this time sharing a room in the Olympic Village, she’ll have a constant reminder to proceed with joy and confidence.
“It’s scary because it’s such a big stage—the biggest stage we’ve ever raced on,” Juliette said. “The thing I’ll tell her, and also remind myself, is just how much we belong there.”
Cindy is a freelance health and fitness writer, author, and podcaster who’s contributed regularly to Runner’s World since 2013. She’s the coauthor of both Breakthrough Women’s Running: Dream Big and Train Smart and Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries, a book about the psychology of sports injury from Bloomsbury Sport. Cindy specializes in covering injury prevention and recovery, everyday athletes accomplishing extraordinary things, and the active community in her beloved Chicago, where winter forges deep bonds between those brave enough to train through it.
