A tale of determination and courage
They supported each other in the superhuman effort they undertook and came out victorious. Vasso Konstantinopoulou, 25, and Sonia Tsekini, 45, came third and fourth place respectively in the Panhellenic Marathon Championship in Athens last Sunday.
They not only had to deal with the distance, but are cancer survivors. Tsekini has undergone treatment for metastatic breast cancer. Konstantinopoulou had surgery in December 2019 after she was diagnosed with myeloid thyroid cancer and is regularly monitored.
“We were talking on the route. We were trying to push each other along and somewhere near the 35th km Sonia told me ‘go.’ I felt bad because I wanted to finish it together… Only at one point during the fight did she tell me that she could not stretch her arm to get water from the stations. Imagine how much strength she had to fight,” Konstantinopoulou told Kathimerini.
Konstantinopoulou’s time was 2:51:32 and Tsekini’s 2:52:35.