At only 17 years old, Paola already has an Olympic record on her name.
Paola Egonu of Italy owns the Olympic record for fastest serve at the end of women’s volleyball fourth round of play at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
The 17-year-old Italian with roots in Nigeria and Benin was clocked serving at 101 kilometres per hour in the match against USA on Friday.
However, she was not the first player in Olympic history to break the 100 kph mark. That honour belongs to Serbia’s Tijana Boskovic, who unleashed a 100 kph rocket earlier the same morning against China.
Another Serbian, Brankica Mihajlovic had set a new record on the opening day of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, clocked at 99 kph in the match against Italy.
Coming into Rio 2016 the Olympic serving speed record stood at 97 kph, held by Turkey’s Neslihan Demir from London 2012.
Congrats Paola! Italy may have failed to advance to the Quarterfinal Round but they have a lot of talented young players like Paola and they are the future of Italian volleyball.