Sandra Perkovic

Her first discus throw achievements came in 2006. Perkovic did not get past the semifinals in her first major competition, i.e. the Worth Junior Championships 2016. However, she went on to win multiple international medals in the silver medals in the 2007 World Youth and European Junior Championships and a bronze at the 2008 World Junior Championships. With 55.89 m, she had the fifth-best junior world ranking in 2008. She competed again after receiving an incorrect appendicitis diagnosis, winning the discus throw gold medal at the European Athletics Junior Championships in July 2009, where she also met the A level for the World Championships. She even established a new national record with a throw of 62.44 meters. Her performance at the European Junior Championships was the best in 20 years, with a winning margin of 7 metres and 33 centimeters, the highest in the championships’ history.

Perkovic significantly increased her personal best at the Croatian Winter Throws Championship on March 6, 2010, in Split, setting a 2010 world-leading mark and surpassing Li Yanfeng’s 2009 record of 66.40 meters. She won the IAAF Diamond League final at Memorial van Damme in Brussels with a new national record of 66.93 m, finishing her debut Diamond League season second overall behind Yarelis Barrios. The Croatian finished her 2010 season with silver at the IAAF Continental Cup in Split, shortly after winning the Hanekovi Memorial in Zagreb on September 1. She received the European Athletics Rising Star of the Year title as recognition for her senior breakthrough year.

She earned a medal at the Summer Olympics for the first time ever in London in 2012. It was the gold medal with a new national record of 69.11 meters. Following her Olympic triumph, Perkovic won the 2013 World Championship in Moscow. She won the 2014 European Championship with a new personal best of 71.08m in Zurich, completing the trio of major championships. She concluded the 2014 Diamond League season with another victory on the same day, two weeks later, in the same Zurich stadium. Perkovic had a flawless season in 2016, winning all eleven of her contests, including the Olympic and European Championships.

With nine out of eleven victories in all contests, including the World Championships in London, 2017 was another nearly flawless season. She threw a national record of 71.41 meters just before the World Championships, the longest throw in 25 years and the best in the world that year. Perkovic regained her form, first earning silver at the 2022 World Championships and then gold at the 2022 European Championships, becoming the first athlete in history to win six individual titles at the European Athletics Championships.

Valarie Allman has become one of the major rivals of Sandra Perkovic in a very short span of time. Valarie is the reigning Tokyo Olympics 2020 champion, in which Sandra finished fourth. She also won the bronze medal at the World Championships 2022, after losing to Sandra who won the silver medal. Sandra’s best throw at the championships was 68.45 m, while Allman’s best throw read 68.30 meters.

Sandra Perkovic was born on 21 June, 1990, to Vesna and Damir Perkovic in Zagreb. She began participating in sports in the second grade of primary school. Besides this, she also played basketball and volleyball. Perkovic then shifted her complete focus to Athletics, especially the shot put and discus throw events in the sixth grade.  She became a member of the Dinamo-Zrinjevac athletic club in 2001. Ivan Ivanicic, a former Olympic shot putter who saw her potential as a discus thrower, became her coach in 2004. She increased her personal best from 32 to over 50 meters in her first year under her new coach.