Ana Fidelia Quirot

Did You Know?

• In 1993, she was involved in a domestic accident that left her seriously injured; she gave birth to her daughter prematurely, and her daughter died a week after she was born.
• She is one of only nine female athletes who have run under 1:55 for 800 m, and was the only female to do so over a 25-year span from 1983 to 2008.

Career

Quirot was born in Palma Soriano, Cuba. In 1983, she won a silver medal in the 400 metres at the Pan American Games in Caracas, running 51.83. Four years later at the Pan American Games in Indianapolis, she won both the 400 m and 800 m — in the 400 m she ran 50.27 to defeat Canada's Jillian Richardson, while in the 800 m she defeated Delisa Walton-Floyd of the US in 1:59.06. At the 1987 World Championships in Rome, she improved her 800 m best to 1:55.84, finishing fourth in a high quality final; the race was won by East Germany's Sigrun Wodars in 1:55.32.

In 1988 she was favored to win the 800 metres gold medal as she went undefeated in the event that season, including winning meetings with her two main rivals and the Olympic gold and silver medallists Sigrun Wodars and Christine Wachtel, but the Cuban boycott prevented her from competing. She was ranked #1 for the year for 800 metres and #4 for 400 metres. At the 1989 IAAF World Cup in Barcelona, Quirot reached her peak at 800 metres, winning in 1:54.44 to move to third on the world all-time list at the time behind Jarmila Kratochvilova and Nadezhda Olizarenko; she also won the 400 m after original winner Marie-Jose Perec was disqualified for running out of her lane.

In 1990, she again achieved a 400 m, 800 m double at the Goodwill Games in Seattle, winning the 400 m in 50.38 and the 800 m in 1:57.42, narrowly ahead of the Soviet Union's Liliya Nurutdinova. She was ranked #1 for the year for both the 400 m and 800 m. Quirot was unbeaten at the 800 metres for almost three years, from her fourth place at the 1987 Worlds to the Zurich Grand Prix in August 1990, when she was third behind the East German pair of Wodars and Christine Wachtel.

This lone defeat bumped her down to third in the Track and Field News 800 m rankings, but she ranked #1 for the year in the 400 metres in 1990, making her the only woman in history thus far (as of 2017) to rank #1 in the world multiple years in both the 400 m and 800 m.