This book presents the athletic portrait of pioneering Greek athlete Dominika Lanitou-Kavounidou and serves as a research work focusing on the social and political components of Greek and international athletics, particularly during the 1930s.

Lanitou, daughter of the Cypriot politician and supporter of the unification movement Nikolaos Lanitis, emerged on the domestic sports scene in 1928 when, at the age of fourteen, she set the first national records in the history of women's Greek athletics. By 1936, she had achieved more than thirty national records, held Balkan records in four events, and her performances in sprinting and hurdles ranked among the top ten in the world.

The narrative of Lanitou's career is accompanied by references to the dominant parameters of sports during the 1930-1950 period, such as the connection between sports and politics, the development of women's sports at the international level and in Greece, social prejudices regarding women's participation in sports, the issue of amateurism, the conditions surrounding track and field competitions, the stance of the "New State" toward sports, and the international socio-political context of the 1936 and 1948 Olympic Games.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the publication]