Five-time Olympian Olivera Jevtić was attacked shortly after the start of a race at the Sofia Marathon in Bulgaria on Sunday. The Serbian athlete had just set off in the 10K event when she appeared to be deliberately shoved by an unidentified male runner in dark overalls and with no visible race number.
Video of the incident (below) shows Jevtić falling to the ground after being shoulder-barged, bringing down another runner as she does so. The attacker continues to run away after the incident.
Jevtić was unconscious for a short time after the fall and suffered some bruising to her head, but she didn’t sustain any serious injuries. No further information has been released about the attacker.
Jevtić, 43, represented Serbia at five Olympics between 2000 and 2016, and was a silver medallist in the marathon at the 2006 European Championships in Gothenburg. In 2003, she set a Serbian women’s marathon record of 2:25:23 that stands today.
The Sofia Marathon event consisted of a full and half marathon, along with a 10K. The men’s marathon was won by Youssef Sbaai of Morocco in 2:13:03, while the women’s title went to Viktoriya Khapilina of Ukraine in 2:27:57.
According to Japan Running News, due to last-minute cancellations or scaling back of several nearby races, including the Bucharest Marathon, Sofia had one of the largest and most competitive fields the event has ever seen. Across all races, there were roughly 2,000 competitors from 37 countries.
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