Jennifer Padilla

Jennifer Padilla González (also spelled; born 1 January 1990) is a Colombian track and field athlete who competes in the 200 metres and 400 metres sprint events. Her first name is also spelled Yenifer of Yennifer.

She won the 400 m title at the 2011 Pan American Games as well as two bronze medals in the relay for Colombia. She set her 400 m personal best of 51.53 seconds at the competition.

Padilla was a medallist in the individual and relay sprinting events at the South American Championships in Athletics in both 2009 and 2011. She jointly holds the national records for the 4×400 metres with a time of 3:29.94 minutes.

Career Born in Quibdó, Chocó Department, she won the Colombian youth title over 200 m in 2007 and made her first international appearances two years later. At the age of nineteen she won her first senior medals, taking the 200 m bronze at the 2009 South American Championships in Athletics and sharing in the 4×400 metres silver with the Colombian team. Although the 2009 South American Junior Athletics Championships was for younger athletes, she repeated the same placings in both the 200 m and 4×100 m relay events. A week later she ran at the 2009 Pan American Junior Championships in Athletics. She came sixth in the 200 m but demonstrated her strength in the 400 metres sprint by winning the gold medal in a time of 53.60 seconds. Her fourth and final international outing of the year came at the 2009 Bolivarian Games and she won the 400 m silver and 400 m relay gold medals.

She began the next season with appearances at the 2010 South American Games, at which she won the 400 m silver medal, came fourth in the 200 m, and ran in both the 100 m and 400 m relay events for Colombia, helping the team to second and first place, respectively. In June she ran at the 2010 Ibero-American Championships in Athletics and claimed the 400 m silver medal behind Cuba's Daisurami Bonne. She was less successful individually at July's 2010 Central American and Caribbean Games, being eliminated in the heats, but she managed to aid Colombia to second place in the 4×400 m relay with Alejandra Idrovo, Darlenis Obregón and Norma González. She ran a 400 m personal best of 51.59 seconds in Cali then placed fifth at the competitive 2011 CAC Championships. She went on to claim two further medals in athletics for Colombia at the games, first helping the 4×100 m relay team to the bronze medal, then anchoring Colombia's 4×400 m relay to a second bronze and a Colombian record mark of 3:29.94 minutes.

Personal bests 100 m: 11.70 A (wind: NWI) – Medellín, Colombia, 5 March 2010 200 m: 23.32 (wind: +0.1 m/s) – Cali, Colombia, November 2015 400 m: 51.53 – Guadalajara, Mexico, 26 October 2011

International competitions 1Did not finish in the final