5 August 2012 - London, UK - At 22 years of age, Sandra Perkovic was the second youngest finalist in the discus on Saturday evening; but her short charge towards becoming the first Croatian athletics gold medallist in the country’s brief history almost never happened. Three and a half years ago, just before Christmas 2008, the 18 year old Perkovic went into a Zagreb hospital for a routine operation on her appendix.