28 years have passed since Voula Patoulidou won the gold medal at the Olympic Games and uttered these classic words that would go down in history:
“For Greece, damn it.”
On 5 August 1992, Patoulidou won the Olympic gold medal in Barcelona for the 100 metre hurdles completing the event in just 12.64 seconds, shouting “For Greece, damn it!” It was the first gold medal Greece had won in track and field since 1912.
The golden Olympian who previously has visited Australia, commemorated this anniversary sharing the following post:
It’s a moment.
A mere few seconds.
A moment when everything can change.
I have always believed that life generously gives you these moments, whoever you are, whatever you do.
Your life offers them and you have to reach out and take them. To understand them and to live them with all your being.
That August morning I was an insignificant athlete that no one counted on.
That same night I had put Greece on the map of the Olympics.
It was just a moment…
It was however a moment that behind it hid all my passion for what I did and my Greek heart that set my feet on fire.
From that moment I feel that the medal did not belong to me. It belonged to all Greeks. From that moment I decided that whatever I did I would do….
FOR GREECE DAMN IT.
READ MORE: «Για την Ελλάδα ρε γαμώτο»