Reda Teteriukove

Happy birthday to Lithuania’s middle-distance runner and 400m hurdler Reda Teteriukovė, who ran the fastest 800m of her life seventeen days before her birthday.

On 1 August at the Daugava Stadium in Riga, Reda ran 2:16.46 for 800m at the Baltic Team Championships — a personal best, and the last step in a curve that has run all season in one direction: 2:21.54 in early June, then 2:17.47, then 2:16.74 to win the Kaunas City title, then 2:16.46. Four races, four improvements, no backward steps. Indoors she did the same thing in February, taking her 400m to 59.12 to win at the Cosma Indoor Cup and her 800m to 2:18.08 to win in Kaunas, then finishing second in the 400m at the Lithuanian Indoor Championships.

She is also a Lithuanian Under-20 champion over the 400m hurdles, won at Alytus in 1:04.22, which is where her Instagram bio still plants its flag — 400m hurdler, it says, above a line from Scarface. Athletes rarely let go of the event that first made them a champion, and she is right not to: the 400m hurdles is the hardest race on the track and holding a national title in it at any age group means something.

She is a student as well, and she races like one — second in the 800m at the Lithuanian Students Championships in Birštonas and second again at the SELL Games in Riga, the Baltic and Nordic student games. Kaunas is home; she trains and races there and won her city title on the S. Darius and S. Girėnas track. And turning twenty means the end of a good U20 career and the first day of a U23 one, with a personal best fresh in the bank to start it.

Su gimtadieniu, Reda! Linkime plieninės sveikatos, auksinės sėkmės ir geležinės kantrybės — ir dar daug greitesnių ratų. Ilgiausių metų! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇱🇹