Flavia Lanza

Happy birthday to Uruguay’s Flavia Lanza, who has set every personal best she owns in the last two years.

Look at the dates. Her 1500m best of 4:28.50 came in November 2025. Her 3000m best of 9:52.94 came in September 2025. Her 10km best of 36:02 came in January 2026. And her 5000m best of 16:42.80, which World Athletics carries with a Uruguayan record flag, came on 7 March 2026. Every single one of them was run at thirty or thirty-one.

Her 2026 has been a run of wins across three surfaces. She won the 3000m at the Torneo Apertura at the Parque Batlle in January. She was the first Uruguayan home at the San Fernando 10K in Maldonado, in a time two minutes and twelve seconds quicker than she ran the same race a year earlier. She won the 3000m at the Darwin Piñeyrúa Grand Prix in April, the 1500m at the Copa Nacional in June, and the 10K at the Copa Uruguaya the same month. In 2025 she won the half marathon at the Maratón de Punta del Este and the Montevideo 15K, and she wore the Uruguayan vest twice: the 1500m at the South American Championships in Mar del Plata, and the 5km at the South American Road Championships in Rio, where she finished fifth in 17:13.

Uruguay is a country of three and a half million people with a small federation, which is how a 1500m and half marathon runner ends up being asked to run a leg of the 4x400m at a continental championship. She ran it. Uruguayan running media have taken to calling her la reina del asfalto celeste, the queen of Uruguayan road racing, and asking out loud whether she counts as the revelation of the season.

She races for the athletics section of Club Atlético Peñarol, trains to a plan written by Martín Mañana, and coaches runners herself alongside Juan Macedo.

¡Feliz cumpleaños, Flavia! Que tengas un divino día, mucha salud y muchísimos kilómetros más por delante. ¡Vamo’ arriba! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇺🇾