Vanja Perišić (born July 5, 1985, in

Split Split(s) or The Split may refer to: Places * Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia * Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay * Split Island, Falkland Islands * Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua Arts, enter ...

) is a

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

n middle distance runner, who specialized in the

800 metres The 800 metres, or 800 meters (American and British English spelling differences#-re.2C -er, US spelling), is a common track running event. It is the shortest commonly run middle-distance running event. The 800 metres is run over two laps of a ...

. Perisic represented

at the

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fro ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, where she competed for the women's 800 metres. She ran in the third heat of the event, against six other athletes, including

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

's Pamela Jelimo, who eventually won the

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have b ...

in the final. She finished the race in sixth place by seventy-one hundredths of a second (0.71) behind Mauritius' Annabelle Lascar, with a time of 2:06.82. Perišić, however, failed to advance into the semi-finals, as she placed thirty-fifth overall, and was ranked farther below three mandatory slots for the next round. On April 29, 2009, Perišić was among the Olympic non-medal winners, who tested positive for Cera, an advanced version of endurance-enhancing hormone EPO.

References

External links

* * *
NBC 2008 Olympics profile
Croatian female middle-distance runners Living people Olympic athletes for Croatia Athletes (track and field) at the 2008 Summer Olympics Sportspeople from Split, Croatia 1985 births Croatian sportspeople in doping cases Doping cases in athletics {{Croatia-athletics-bio-stub