Ana Fidelia Quirot

Who is Ana Fidelia Quirot?

Ana Fidelia Quirot Moré is a female former athlete from Cuba, who specialised in the 800 m but was also successful over 400 m.

Quirot won a silver medal at the 1991 IAAF World Championships in Athletics and a bronze medal in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. However the following year she was involved in a horrific domestic accident that left her seriously injured. She was pregnant at the time and gave birth to her daughter prematurely in hospital while fighting for her life. Her daughter did not survive and died a week after she was born.

She returned from her accident in late 1993 and won a silver medal in the Central America Games, behind the Surinam athlete Letitia Vriesde. She had international success in the following years too: she won a gold medal at the 1995 IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Sweden and again in 1997 in Athens. She also won a silver at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

She is one of only a handful of female athletes who have run under 1 minute and 55 seconds for 800 m: her best time of 1:54.44 was set when winning the IAAF World Cup in Barcelona in 1989, and she also ran 1:54.82 to beat Maria de Lurdes Mutola in a Grand Prix race in Cologne in 1997. Her personal best time ranks her as the fourth fastest 800 m runner of all time. Her personal best for 400 m is 49.61. She also holds the world best for the unofficial distance of 600 metres.