Ileana Salvador

Ileana Salvador (born 16 January 1962) is a former Italian race walker who won eight medals at the World Championships and European Championships^[1]

Ileana Salvador

Personal information
National team	Italy: 20 caps (1987-1996)[1] Sweden: 3 caps (2005-2007)[2]
Born	(1962-01-16) 16 January 1962 (age 63) Noale, Italy
Height	1.63 m (5 ft 4 in)
Weight	52 kg (115 lb)
Sport
Sport	Athletics
Event	Racewalking
Club	Fiamma Vicenza (1987-1990)[1] Fiat Sud Formia (1991)[1] Sisport Fiat Torino (1992-1996)[1]
Retired	2007
Achievements and titles
Personal bests	10 km: 41:30 (1993) 20 km: 1:31:53 (1993)
Medal record Event 1st 2nd 3rd World Championships 0 1 0 European Championships 0 0 1 World Indoor Championships 0 0 3 European Indoor Championships 0 3 0 Summer Universiade 1 0 0 World Race Walking Cup 1 2 2 Total 2 6 6

In 2005 she acquired Swedish citizenship.^[2]

Biography

She won ten medals, to senior level, at the International athletics competitions.^[3] Specializing in indoor competitions running, boasts six medals (three European silver and three World bronze), just earned indoor. She participated at one edition of the Summer Olympics (1992), she has 29 caps in national team from 1987 to 1996.^[4] She was twice World Best Year Performance in Women's Race Walking: 1992 in the 10 km walk and 1993 in the 20 km walk.

Her career and her life, has inspired a book La marcia infinita di Ileana (The neverending racewalking of Ileana), from Valter Esposito (2006, Il Prato publisher).^[5]

Personal life

Ileana Salvador is the companion of the Swedish racewalker, Olympic silver medalist and European Championships bronze medalist, Bo Gustafsson,^[6] lives in Sweden from 1996. The couple has two daughters, Nicole (born 1995) and Noelle (born 1998) who is a model and in 2019 she participated in the selections for the Miss Italia contest.^[7] She is a teacher of italian language^[8] and Consular Officer at Embassy of Italy in Sweden.

The bronze medal in Barcelona 1992

At the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Ileana Salvador won the bronze medal in the 10 km race walk.^[9] Or at least she finished third and for 20 minutes rightly celebrated her triumph, only to discover that she was disqualified for having taken the third red card for irregular racewalking, which entails the disqualification, just when she had entered the Stadium sure of her third position.^[10]

Records

She is holder of two world records in not Olympic distance, but recognized by IAAF and former holder of two more records.^[11][12]

World records

• 25 km walk: 2:08:46 ( Växjö, 28 September 1996) - current holder
• 3000 m walk (track): 11:48:24 ( Padua, 29 August 1993) - current holder
• 2 miles walk indoor: 13:11.88 ( Genoa, 14 February 1990) - until 14 September 1996
• 10,000 m walk (track): 42:39.2 ( Genoa, 17 June 1989) - until 26 May 1990

European records

• 5000 m walk (track): 20:25.2 ( Barcelona, 5 April 1992) - until 11 July 1995^[1]

National records

• 10,000 m walk (track): 42:23.7 ( Bergen, 8 May 1993) - until 23 April 2017^[13]

Achievements

Year	Competition	Venue	Rank	Event	Time
1989	World Indoor Championships	Budapest	3rd	3000 m walk	12:11.33
	World Race Walking Cup	L'Hospitalet	3rd	10 km walk team	203 pts
			3rd	10 km walk	43.24
	Universiade	Duisburg	1st	5000 m walk	20.44
	European Indoor Championships	The Haugue	2nd	3000 m walk	12:32.43
1990	European Indoor Championships	Glasgow	2nd	3000 m walk	12:18.84
	European Championships	Split	3rd	10 km walk	44:38]
1991	World Indoor Championships	Seville	3rd	3000 m walk	12.07.67
	World Race Walking Cup	San Jose	6th	10 km walk	44.52
			2nd	10 km walk team	180 pts
	World Championships	Tokyo	7th	10 km walk	44.09
1992	European Indoor Championships	Genoa	2nd	3000 m walk	11:53.23
	Olympic Games	Barcelona	DSQ	10 km walk	no time
1993	World Indoor Championships	Toronto	3rd	3000 m walk	11:55.35
	World Race Walking Cup	Monterrey	6th	10 km walk	46.02
			1st	10 km walk team	196 pts
	World Championships	Stuttgart	2nd	10 km walk	43:08
1994	European Championships	Helsinki	11th	10 km walk	44:51
1995	World Race Walking Cup	Beijing	31st	10 km walk	45:55
			2nd	10 km walk team	429 pts

National titles

Salvador won 19 national championships at individual senior level, 15 Italian and 4 Swedish.^{[14][15][16][17]}

• Italian Athletics Championships
  • 5000 metres walk: 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 (5)
  • 10 km walk: 1987, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993 (5)
  • 20 km walk: 1993 (1)
• Italian Athletics Indoor Championships
  • 3000 metres walk: 1988, 1990, 1992, 1993 (4)
• Swedish Athletics Championships
  • 5000 metres walk: 1997 (1)
  • 10 km walk: 1997 (1)
• Swedish Athletics Indoor Championships
  • 3000 metres walk: 1997, 2001 (2)

See also

• Italian all-time lists - 20 km walk
• List of world records in athletics
• List of European records in athletics
• Italian records in athletics
• Italy at the IAAF World Race Walking Cup
• Italian team at the running events