BIZLife list “30 under 30”: Ivana Spanovic, sport

Ivana Spanovic grew up in a family dedicated to sports. She started taking karate lessons with her older brother, who, like most boys, later opted for football, and she, as a girl, for volleyball and handball. Nevertheless, her mother’s athletic medals on the wall attracted her to try athletics. Ivana began her brilliant career at the age of seven, when her father took her to the first training session with coach Jan Hajdu in his native town of Zrenjanin. Her first coach was also the coach of her mother, former sprinter, in whom Ivana still finds inspiration. Upon finishing high school, Ivana moved to Novi Sad, where she started working with coach Goran Obradovic and became a member of AC „Vojvodina“. In her junior career, Ivana won every possible competition, and she always returned from national, Balkan, European and world championships with a medal around her neck. For a decade, Ivana has been present on the world and European athletic scene and she has been attracting the attention of both sports and fashion media. With her attractive looks, results and professionalism on the track and beyond, she is a role model for many young people in Serbia, but also in other countries. Ivana was the first in the history of Serbian athletics to win a medal at the IAAF World Championship. She is the first lady of Serbian athletics who, after her historic success at the 2013 world outdoor championship, won a medal for Serbia at the 2014 world indoor championship. One of her greatest achievements is the 2016 Olympic medal. The world indoor championship title came to Ivana’s possession exactly ten years after winning the junior world outdoor championship. She won the European indoor championship twice, and this year she is defending the title of the European outdoor champion, which she won in Amsterdam in 2016. Her personal record is 7.24m, the third best score of all time indoor in the history of athletic sport. The impressiveness of her results is shown by the fact that Spanovic is a regular participant in the most prestigious athletic competitions. Ivana won the competitions in almost all the major cities of the world, and for two consecutive years she won the Diamond Trophy.

Izvor: BIZLife