From cancer to championship

​

This photo reportage was made for the Moldovan independent association of reporters "Oameni si Kilometri", whose aim is to understand social phenomena and to reproduce them in detail through the untold stories about people and fates split in kilometers. 

​

Link to the article: https://oamenisikilometri.md/campioana/

​

At the beginning of the 2000s, Elena Iabanji left behind the Moldova in which she was afraid "One day, I will find my children frozen in the morning" and where "the refrigerator full of products seemed to me the greatest possible wealth", so she decided to go ...
... to the end of the world. There, "I came only with a suitcase", and one day she came to say herself 'You lived for nothing!', after being diagnosed with cancer and thought she had only two weeks left to live. She was wrong and managed to overcome the disease. To recover, she started running and ...
... she didn't stop. She started her career with running to support an oncology institution, feeling in debt to the state that saved her. "When I looked back and saw that more than half of the athletes are behind me, I felt like a champion. Since then I have won many titles, but I have never experienced that satisfaction and joy. "