Another Greek athlete, who successfully participated in the Nanjing Youth Olympic Games, is 17 years old Nancy Vaitsi. Nancy, a member of the Greek ‘Ilissos’ Association, took the 5th place in 5000 meters race walk. She achieved a personal record (24.22.21) during the Games although one of her shoes was taken off at the start of the race limiting her chances to take a place in the top three. As Nancy explains on chinaandgreece, the qualifiers held in Baku of Azerbaijan in May 2014 were the critical point for her career guaranteeing her participation in the big Nanjing sports event.
Despite the misfortune in the first 15 seconds of the Nanjing Games, the young Greek athlete has returned to Greece having memories. ‘It was a unique experience for me not only concerning race walking but also regarding social networking as I met athletes from almost all the world’, she says. Nancy’s ambition for 2015 is to qualify to Cali World Youth Championship which will take place in July of the coming year in the city of Colombia. She can be certainly optimistic due to her hard work and good character.