Olympics silver medallist shares behind-the-scenes nightmare and almost skipped Games

Olympics silver medallist shares behind-the-scenes nightmare and almost skipped Games
Donna Vekic revealed that she almost skipped the Paris 2024 Games before becoming the first Croatian woman ever to win a medal in the tennis event at the Olympics.

The 28-year-old had a nightmare start to her Olympics journey when she got sick and her flight was cancelled.

It’s been a standout summer for Vekic, who reached the final in Bad Homburg and got to her first Grand Slam semi-final at Wimbledon. But after her heroics at SW19, she almost gave up on the Olympics.

“After Wimbledon semi-finals I had so much pain everywhere that I was debating going to the Olympics because I thought, okay, in these conditions there’s no way I can win a medal,” the world No. 21 said after losing to Qinwen Zheng in the gold medal match. “I had pain in my arm, pain in my ankle, I was sick.”

And that wasn’t the only barrier Vekic faced in her journey to the silver medal. She continued: “Everything was happening all at once. When we came here, first our flight was cancelled, we arrived late. Everything was going wrong. When we had our first practice, I told my coach, I was coughing so bad I couldn’t hit two shots in a row.