The story of Nary Ly and how she became Cambodia’s first female scientist and Olympian

Nary Ly was born in Cambodiawas educated in France and today lives in a town in Spain. She managed to survive the genocide of the Khmer Rouge in the seventies, she became the first scientist from her country and also the first Cambodian to run a marathon in an Olympic Games.

One of the reasons Nary Ly set out to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics was to honor the victims of the genocide and inspire the people of your country. Her story was captured in a book that she published in 2018 entitled “The Story of Nary Ly, survivor, scientist, Olympian”.

When Nary Ly was born, Cambodia was in the midst of a civil war between the Cambodian army and the Khmer Rouge. After five years of war the Khmer Rouge seized power commanded by Pol Pot. Experts say that his cruelty exceeded that of Hitler and Stalin.

At the age of 10, Nary Ly managed to escape to France where she was educated. She studied biology and became the first Cambodian scientist. After completing his doctorate and post-doctorate, signed up for a half marathon charity in Cambodia to raise funds for children with HIV.

Nary Li was the only Cambodian runner. She had never run before and did well enough to start in the sport of long distance running. She then took it seriously and decided to think big: become the first Cambodian to run an Olympic marathon. The Rio 2016 Games were his goal.

Participation in Rio 2016

He ran his first marathon at the age of 37. She had to do it in less than three hours, a necessary condition to receive the invitation to go to the Games. It was then that she decided to move to Spain to train. In the Valencia marathon she dropped below 3 hours and achieved the classification for Rio for his country.

However, he could not meet the objective of lowering the three hours in Brazil. At km 7 he felt pain in the Achilles tendon. He had 35 km left. “It was too early to get injured. I didn’t know how it was going to end. She thought: I’m not going to get the time I want, the 2 hours 50 that I had as a goal ”said.

“So I’m going to try to finish, reach the goal, just to show that the will to do something overcomes obstacles and that if I could do it, despite the injury and my age, because I started very late, young people could do it too”he added.

Although he finished in last position with a time of 3 hours 20 minutes and 20 seconds, just participating was already a feat. To Nary Ly Surviving a genocide was not enough and being the first woman scientist in her country, but also being the first Cambodian to run an Olympic marathon.