Ileana Salvador


Ileana Salvador is a former Italian race walker who won eight medals at the World Championships and European Championships
In 2005 she acquired Swedish citizenship.

Biography

She won ten medals, to senior level, at the International athletics competitions. Specializing in indoor competitions running, boasts six medals, just earned indoor. She participated at one edition of the Summer Olympics, she has 29 caps in national team from 1987 to 1996. 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, from Valter Esposito.

Personal life

Ileana Salvador is the companion of the Swedish racewalker, Olympic silver medalist and European Championships bronze medalist, Bo Gustafsson, lives in Sweden from 1996. The couple has two daughters, Nicole and Noelle who is a model and in 2019 she participated in the selections for the Miss Italia contest. She is a teacher of italian language 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. 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.

Records

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

World records

European records

National records

National titles

Salvador won 19 national championships at individual senior level, 15 Italian and 4 Swedish.