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Florencia Hunt: Saint-Martin's Olympic 800-metre runner

A profile of Florencia Hunt, the Saint-Martin athlete who ran the 800 metres for the Netherlands Antilles at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, setting a national record, and whose name is now on the Stade Albéric Richards track.

By SXM Daily ·

Florencia Hunt is a Saint-Martin middle-distance runner who competed at the Olympic Games. At Sydney 2000 she ran the women's 800 metres for the Netherlands Antilles and set a national record, and in 2024 the athletics track at Stade Albéric Richards was named after her.

The athletics track at Stade Albéric Richards, Saint-Martin (illustrative)

Illustrative: Stade Albéric Richards, Saint-Martin. Photo: Remy Gumbs / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Sydney 2000

Hunt lined up in heat 1 of round 1 of the women's 800 metres at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, representing the Netherlands Antilles. Over two laps of the track she finished seventh in 2:03.78, a national record, according to the official results published by World Athletics and the Olympedia database. The time was not enough to reach the next round, but it put her name in the record books.

Her given name is sometimes misspelled. Olympedia, World Athletics and SoualigaPost all spell it Florencia.

A track in her name

On 26 April 2024, the Collectivité's Executive Council named the athletics track at Stade Albéric Richards after her, SoualigaPost and Faxinfo reported. Young athletes who train at the stadium now run on a track that carries her name.

Olympic year 2024

In 2024, the year of the Paris Olympics, Hunt was patron of a three-day sports celebration linked to the Games, le97150 reported.

Why she matters

More than two decades after Sydney, Hunt's run remains part of Saint-Martin's sporting history. Her national record and the track that now carries her name show how one athlete's performance on the world's biggest stage can leave a lasting mark on a small island's sporting life.

Sources

  • https://worldathletics.org/results/olympic-games/2000/27th-olympic-games-6951910/women/800-metres/round-1/result
  • https://www.olympedia.org/results/65741
  • https://www.olympedia.org/athletes/83208
  • https://www.soualigapost.com/fr/actualite/46838/sports/stade-richards-la-piste-d%E2%80%99athl%C3%A9tisme-porte-le-nom-de-florencia-hunt
  • https://www.faxinfo.fr/en/athletisme-la-piste-dathletisme-du-stade-alberic-richards-porte-desormais-le-nom-de-floriencia-hunt/
  • https://www.le97150.fr/en/sports/jeux-olympiques-trois-jours-de-celebration-sportive-au-club-2024
  • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stade_Alberic_Richard_%C3%A0_Saint-Martin_-_panoramio.jpg

Source: https://worldathletics.org/results/olympic-games/2000/27th-olympic-games-6951910/women/800-metres/round-1/result

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