The Story of an Olympic Winner.

Maria Isabel is a Colombian athlete born on March 25, 1965 in the municipality of Candelaria, Valle del Cauca, in a family consisting of her parents and four brothers. From its beginnings as an athlete, Maria Isabel specialized in launching lbala and javelin.

Urrutia went through a difficult economic situation after his father suffered a serious accident, and her mother had had to take over the maintenance of the family. While disciplined devoted to training as an athlete, Maria Isabel collaborated with his playing skills such as selling lottery.

Coach Daniel Balanta Maria Isabel met when she was 11 years old. After watching her great potential as an athlete, he convinced his parents to let him train. Two years later, in 1978, Maria Isabel traveled with his coach to compete in Bogota and their efforts were rewarded when getting her first gold medal.

After a few years, she began working as a telephone operator in Cali Municipal Enterprises serving complains. Getting 300 to 500 calls a day, to get money to participate in various national and international competitions, in which she won 24 medals.

Later, he met the Bulgarian coach Gantcho Mitco Karouchrov, who suggested training in weightlifting. After focusing in that mode, Maria Isabel won several medals in world of England 1989, Yugoslavia in 1990, Germany in 1991, Turkey in 1994 and China in 1995.

His coach  suggested lower your body weight to participate in the new category of 75 kilos which premiered at the Olympic Games in Sydney Australia in 2002. She lost 20 kilos in four months, and after hard training was the first Colombian athlete getting a gold medal at the Olympic Games.
After this important achievement, it was awarded as the best sportsman of the year by numerous sports guilds in Colombia, and also was named best female athlete of Latin America. Up to now she get retired from sports, and now she stands in politics as member of the chamber by Afro-Colombian.