“I’m excited. What happened is incredible,” Antigoni Drisbioti told Neos Kosmos after coming second in the 20km Walk of Australia Championship, in Melbourne on Sunday, 12 February.
The golden” 2022 European champion shared her excitement amidst a group of expatriates who attended the race at Fawkner Park, South Yarra cheering her on as she crossed the finish line, achieving a new pan-Hellenic record beating Athena Papagianni’s time of 1.28.58 time at the Athens Olympic Games in 2004.
Drisbioti finished the race in 1 hour 28 minutes and 12 seconds, a goal she had been training for since December with the aim to pass the qualifying limit for the Paris Olympics. This will be Drisbioti’s third career Olympic Games after finishing 15th at the 2016 event in Rio de Janeiro and finishing eighth in 2021 in Tokyo.
“The conditions were quite good, although it was a bit windy and humid. The temperature was 20 degrees. From Munich onwards I knew that I could make the Olympic limit, but I didn’t know that I could run so fast,” she enthused, justifying her decision to continue her training in Australia, in a camp with strong female athletes, “a choice made late last year”.
The Greek athlete also improved her individual time of 1.29.03 which earned her the gold medal at the European Championships in Munich. Ahead of Drisbioti finished Australia’s Jemima Montag with 1.28.00.
“I had trained very well all this time in Australia. Everything happens with regularity. It was a very good day for me today,” Drisbioti added.
“The preparation in Australia went very well and this was also seen in today’s result. I stayed focused on my work, I was in a very strong group with very strong athletes in excellent conditions and all this helped me achieve a great performance today”.
The athlete from Karditsa in Greece is now focusing on her preparation for the World Championships in Budapest, her “big goal for the year”, and laying the foundations for the Paris Games.
“It is incredible. It is my best race so far from Greece,” she told Neos Kosmos. “And of course I will come back to Australia.”
“For the race, it was clearly a tactical race. We had talked about the race beforehand with Jemima, from Australia. Until the 15th kilometre we went together and then we both went off and did our own 5km.”
Drisbioti is set to return to Greece on Wednesday to intensify her training and set her competitive goals ahead of the Budapest event.
Last Thursday, Drisbioti was welcomed by the Greek Community of Melbourne, while a day earlier she visited Neos Kosmos’ headquarters for an interview with journalist Zoe Thomaidou. Read it here.
