World Athletics is deeply saddened to hear that Carmen Valero, Spain’s 1976 and 1977 world cross country champion, died on Tuesday (2) in her hometown of Sabadell at the age of 68.
Valero was a trailblazer for Spanish female athletes. At the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, she became the first Spanish woman to compete in the Olympic Games in athletics, racing both the 800m and the 1500m.
By that time, Valero had already won her first world cross country title. Earlier that year, in Chepstow, Wales, she beat two future Olympic champions, Soviet Union’s Tatyana Kazankina and Italy’s Gabriella Dorio.
In 1977, Valero retained her global crown in Dusseldorf, becoming the first woman to win three medals at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships following the bronze she claimed in Rabat in 1975.
Throughout her career, Valero won 25 Spanish titles between cross country, 800m, 1500m and 3000m, and set 15 national records among those three distances. Her Spanish records included 2:04.12 for 800m (1976), 4:08.34 for 1500m (1976) and 9:00.9 for 3000m (1978).
Credit: World Athletics
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