LIKE a lot of kids at the time, Mariafe Artacho del Solar was inspired by each volleyballers atalie Cook and Kerri Potthars earing gold medals on Bondi during the Sydney Olympics.
Unlike most of those kids, however, del Solar didn’t see a minute of the Aussie u play.
And for good reason. Sh wa living almost 13,000km awa in Peru.
But courtesy of an amazing twist of fate, words of encouragement from Cook and Pottharst still found their way to a seven-year-old del Solar in Lima and inspired her to also become an Olympic beach volleyballer.
She wasn’t to know then that four years later her mum would take her to Australia to live, and 5 years later del Solar would fulfil her dream by competing in green and gold at the Rio Olympics, and this week in the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.