How Sandra Perkovic cheated death
European discus champion Sandra Perkovic will be a Croatian national hero on show at the IAAF Continental Cup in Split this weekend. But as spikesmag.com discovered the 20-year-old is lucky to be here at all after suffering a near-fatal condition at the beginning of 2009.
A little over 20 months ago Sandra Perkovic lay on a hospital bed, her life hanging in the balance. Doctors has misdiagnosed appendicitis and she was rushed into emergency surgery after her appendix burst. If this was not bad enough this led to a potentially fatal bout of septicemia or blood poisoning, which started to attack her system.
She was forced into a second emergency surgery, the future looked grim.
“I was in the last minutes (of my life) on the surgery table,” Perkovic bluntly told spikesmag.com of the gravity of the situation.
Yet the promising discus thrower held one card in her favour. As a gifted athlete, who had won bronze at the 2008 World Junior Championships, she possessed super-fitness levels and she believes it was this fact which saved her life and aided her recovery.
“They told me that because I was an athlete, I have a strong body,” Perkovic added. “They told me a normal person or a person with a weak body would not have made it.”
Slowly the treatment started to work. The condition was attacked and Perkovic gradually improved.
The road to full recovery was far from easy, though. She had lost 15kg in weight. Fleeting thoughts crossed her mind that her discus career was over, yet for the most part she always remained positive.
“Most days I was optimistic,” added Perkovic. “I was always hoping and you know what? I never cried.”
The Croat is clearly made of stern stuff and slowly set about the process of nursing herself back to full health. She gained weight, became more mobile and defied doctors by returning to jogging just three months later even though she was not expected to return to full training before the end of the year.
In July last year, some six months after her near fatal bout of blood poisoning, her rehabilitation was complete when she landed the European Junior title in Novi-Sad with a national record throw of 62.44m. It was some performance.
“When I won gold I looked back at the all the different parts of my life, so I was happy,” she added. “God had given me hope. I think the experience has made by stronger and mentally more robust.”
Yet Perkovic’s story did not ended in the Serbian city of Novi-Sad. No, her story has gathered more momentum in 2010.
Enjoying the benefit of full winter’s training - following a hugely interrupted campaign the previous winter - Perkovic has advanced under the training of long-time coach, Ivan Ivancic, from a junior champion into world-class thrower.
In Split in March she set a then world leading mark and national record of 66.85m to announce her intentions for the season and despite some up and down performances during the Samsung Diamond League (she won in New York but was sixth in Oslo and seventh in Lausanne) she excelled when it mattered most at the European Championships in Barcelona.
But once again victory was forged out of adversity. During a tricky qualification session into an awkward headwind Perkovic failed to fire. She only managed a modest best of 57.70m – more than nine metres down on her lifetime best – but she scraped into the final as the tenth best qualifier.
“I was too relaxed,” she said of the preliminaries in Barcelona. “I knew I was prepared, but I had to prove that to myself so I knew I had to concentrate in the final.”
She was behind long-time leader Nicoleta Grasu of Romania – 18 years her senior – from the first round but unleashed a final effort of 64.67m to strike gold with her sixth and final effort. A performance which showed not only great ability but supreme mental fortitude.
And as she said in the wake of her success at the time: “It’s unbelievable that I achieved the gold medal with my last attempt. I had a good feeling before the last throw. It’s a great feeling to be the best in Europe.”
Since Barcelona she gone from strength to strength setting another national record of 66.93m to win the final Diamond League competition of the season in Brussels, and her life has changed in the wake of her success.
Perkovic accepts that she is now a woman in demand on the streets of Zagreb and young fans regularly ask her for autographs. She is now Croatia’s second most recognisable athlete in her homeland behind European and World high jump champion Blanka Vlasic. So does Perkovic know Vlasic?
“Blanka and I are good friends,” added Perkovic. “She helped me before a competition and I think I have the best teacher. She has had lots of attention for the past three years and she knows the best way to react.”
Yet despite both landing European titles in Barcelona the duo’s season is far from over. The Croatian seaport of Split hosts this weekend’s IAAF Continental Cup meaning a glorious opportunity for Perkovic and Vlasic to sign off their season in style in front of their passionate home support.
Perkovic, for one, is relishing the prospect of competing in Split and she added: “My friends and family will be there and although I’m representing Europe that event it my country so I hope to come away with the win. I was an optimist (before this season), but now I’m a real, real optimist.”
And optimism has been a state of mind that speaks volumes of her remarkable story, so far. A story that you feel is set to run and run for many years to come.