Ainhoa Reparaz

Happy birthday to Spain’s sprinter Ainhoa Repáraz, the fastest Galician woman there has ever been.

She holds the Galician 100m record and the Galician 200m record, and in June she won both events at the Galician Championships, taking the 200m in 23.69. Her 100m best of 11.47 came in May at the Mid-American Conference Championships in Indiana, where she made the final and broke the meet record on the way. She competes in the United States for Kent State, and in Spain for Atletismo Femenino Celta in Vigo, having come up through Val Miñor under Óscar Fernández.

She has been doing this since she was sixteen. At the European U18 Championships in Jerusalem she ran 11.53 in the heats and broke the Spanish U18 100m record and the championship record in the same race, then took bronze with the Spanish relay. Around twenty Galician records have carried her name across the age groups.

She is from Baiona, on the Pontevedra coast, and Baiona holds a particular distinction: in March 1493 La Pinta made port there, which made it the first place in Europe to hear that a new world had been found. A town that got the news before anyone else, and a sprinter who gets there first.

Moitos parabéns, Ainhoa! Moita saúde, moita alegría e un ano aínda mellor — que soe o aturuxo! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇪🇸