Olivia Borlée
Quick Facts
Biography
Olivia Borlée (born 10 April 1986 in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert) is a Belgian sprinter who specializes in the 200 metres. Her personal best time in the individual distance is 22.98 seconds, achieved in July 2006 in Brussels. She has 11.39 seconds in the 100 metres.
She won a bronze medal in 4x100 m relay at the 2007 World Championships, together with teammates Hanna Mariën, Élodie Ouédraogo and Kim Gevaert. With 42.75 seconds the team set a new Belgian record.
Borlée represented Belgium at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. She competed at the 4x100 metres relay together with Gevaert, Mariën and Ouédraogo. In their first round heat they placed first in front of Great Britain, Brazil and Nigeria. Their time of 42.92 seconds was the third time overall out of sixteen participating nations. With this result they qualified for the final in which they sprinted to a time of 42.54 seconds and the second place behind Russia but in front of Nigeria to take the silver medal, missing out on the gold medal with 0.23 seconds. However, one of the Russian runners was later to found to have used banned performance-enhancing drugs resulting in the Russian's teams disqualification thereby promoting Belgium to the gold medal position. She was awarded the gold medal eight years later on September 10, 2016.
She represented Belgium at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. She competed in the 200 metres event. She finished 7th in her heat with a time of 23.53 seconds. She did not qualify for the semifinals. She was the flag bearer for Belgium during the Parade of Nations.
Olivia Borlée's brothers Jonathan, Kevin and Dylan are also athletes. Coached by their father, Jacques Borlée, they ran to the 4th place in the 2016 Olympic 4x400 metres relay final.