Olivera Jevtić


Olivera Jevtić is a Serbian long-distance runner. She has represented her country five times at the Olympics in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016.

Running career

Jevtić was born in Titovo Užice, Yugoslavia, otherwise known presently as Užice, Serbia. Her parents are father Milorad and mother Draginja. She is based in her native city, coached by Slavoljub "Slavko" Kuzmanović, and she competes for the running club AK Mladost Užice. Jevtić holds the Serbian marathon record of 2:25:23, which she established at the Rotterdam Marathon in 2003. She won the silver medal in the marathon at the 2006 European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden. In December 2007, coach Kuzmanović and Jevtić went on an altitude training trip to Eldoret, Kenya, when violent conflict erupted from the 2007 Kenyan election crisis. Although they wanted to continue working out in spite of the violence, her training partner, Stanley Kipruto, insisted that their lives were in danger and led them out of Eldoret so that they could leave the country from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. After Jevtić and Kuzmanović were picked up by a Serbian diplomat-evacuation flight, Kipruto was caught by rebels, tortured, and lost four fingers. Subsequent to the violence in Kenya, Kipruto moved in to live with Jevtić and Kuzmanović in Užice and joined their running team Mladost.
She won the women's race at the Balkan Cross Country Championships in March 2011.
Jevtić was selected as young athlete of the year of 1996. In 2006 she was awarded Golden Badge of Sport, award for the sportsperson of the Year in Serbia, and the same year, and the 1998 and 1999 was declared the best sportswoman by the Olympic Committee of Serbia and Yugoslavia.
Jevtić was stripped of third place in 2002 New York City Marathon and received a public warning after testing positive for the banned drug ephedrine. The president of NYRR at the time, Alan Steinfeld, told the New York Times that it was likely an "innocent mistake" and that ephedrine is common in cough suppressants.

National titles