# Nancy Gabriela Sandoval Moreira: El Salvador’s Record-Breaking Hurdler
**Full Name:** Nancy Gabriela Sandoval Moreira | **Born:** October 10, 1999 | **Country:** El Salvador | **Events:** 100 metres hurdles, 60 metres hurdles, 4×100 metres relay | **Club:** Athletic Beans | **Coach:** Óscar López | **World Athletics Code:** 14664811
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In a small country better known internationally for its football than its track and field athletes, Nancy Gabriela Sandoval Moreira has spent the better part of a decade quietly rewriting the record books. Since first breaking the Salvadoran national record in the 100 metres hurdles as an eighteen-year-old in Peru, she has reset her own marks so many times that keeping track requires its own spreadsheet. By March 2026, she was competing at the World Indoor Championships in ToruÅ„, Poland — still improving, still going faster, still carrying El Salvador’s blue and white flag into venues where few from her country have stood before.
Sandoval is, simply put, the best women’s hurdler in El Salvador’s history. And at twenty-six, she’s probably not done yet.
## From the Family and the Track: An Origin Story
Nancy Sandoval came to athletics through her family. As documented in coverage by ContraPunto, she was drawn to sport from a young age by her uncle, who was himself a passionate sports enthusiast. That early influence opened a door, and it was walking through that door that she encountered Coach Óscar López — the man who has been central to her development throughout her career.
When she first came to López’s attention, he ran her through a battery of tests alongside her cousins to assess natural athletic potential. What emerged from those early evaluations shaped the trajectory of everything that followed. Sandoval started out competing in the combined events, then transitioned to jumps — specifically the long jump and triple jump — and finally found her calling in the hurdles. The progression made sense: the hurdles require the explosive hip mobility, stride timing, and courage over barriers that jumpers develop naturally, and once she made the switch and broke her first national record, the choice felt obvious.
As she told it herself in media coverage: “After so much work and effort, I managed to break the record that the federation held. I liked the work so much that I decided to stay in the hurdles event.”
Her training base has been in El Salvador, working with coach Óscar López and competing under the banner of Athletic Beans — a club that has become her competitive home as she has advanced through the national and international levels.
## The Youth Career: A U20 Gold Medal Announces Her Arrival
By 2018, at just eighteen years old, Sandoval had already made herself known on the regional youth circuit. That summer, she competed in the Central American U18 and U20 Championships and won the gold medal in the 100 metres hurdles in the U20 women’s category, clocking 14.60 seconds. It was the kind of performance that signals a real prospect — not just someone who is fast for a teenager, but someone who might genuinely develop into a senior-level competitor.
The same summer, at the Campeonato Iberoamericano in Trujillo, Peru, she ran faster than any Salvadoran woman ever had in the 100 metres hurdles — 14.10 seconds — breaking the national record in the process. She finished fifth in that final, but the time that mattered was the one that went into the national record book. It beat her own previous mark of 14.12, which she had apparently set earlier that same year. At eighteen, she was already rewriting her own records.
El Gráfico, the Salvadoran sports daily, reported the performance simply: “The Salvadoran hurdler Nancy Gabriela Sandoval broke records and added another mark and a new personal best.”
## Building Through Injury: 2019–2022
The years after that breakthrough were not without their complications. Sandoval has been candid about the fact that 2021 was largely a lost year to injury. “In 2021 I was injured almost the whole year, so I couldn’t work very hard,” she told INDES reporters in February 2023. The disruption set her back from what had been a building trajectory, forcing a slower, more careful return to competition in 2022.
But the setback also illustrated something important about her character: she came back methodically, treating the recovery season as a foundation rather than a starting line. By 2022, she was healthy enough to reset the national indoor record in the 60 metres hurdles to 8.72 seconds — a mark she had previously held herself. Each time the record was reset, it was Sandoval doing the resetting. She had essentially become the benchmark for her own event.
By February 2023, she arrived at the Non-Olympic Outdoor Track and Field Meet in El Salvador in the kind of shape that turns heads. At a competition held at the Héroes y Mártires Stadium at the University of El Salvador, she set two national records in a single afternoon: 8.55 seconds in the 60 metres hurdles (breaking her 2022 mark of 8.72) and 7.81 seconds in the 60 metres flat, the latter erasing a record that had stood since 2004 when Consuelo Vásquez had run 7.86.
Her emotional reaction to the double-record day was characteristic of someone who understood exactly what the work had cost her. “I had been preparing since August of last year, I trained hard and the truth is it’s a great emotion — it makes me want to cry because all that effort, seeing it now, was worth it,” she told INDES reporters. She connected the marks to the 2021 injury year explicitly: “The difference is that in 2021 I spent almost the whole year injured, so I couldn’t work very hard. By 2022 I was already recovering, and I could bring the record down by two hundredths — which was also my own — and this year I’ve been working many more months, with greater preparation, and you can see it because I brought the record down quite a bit.”
## San Salvador 2023: A World Stage at Home
The XXIV Central American and Caribbean Games of 2023 were held on home soil in San Salvador — a genuinely rare and special circumstance for any Salvadoran athlete. For Nancy Sandoval, it meant competing in front of a home crowd at the Estadio Nacional Jorge “El Mágico” González, a setting charged with national pride.
She reached the final of the 100 metres hurdles, clocking 13.62 seconds in the semifinal and 13.74 seconds in the final (finishing seventh). More significantly for the national record books, her semifinal performance of 13.62 at that stage of a major regional championship represented continued progression toward times that were becoming genuinely competitive at the Central American and Caribbean elite level.
She also contributed to the Salvadoran women’s 4×100 relay team, which posted a time of 48.84 seconds in those Games.
The experience of competing before a home crowd left a visible impression on her. “I hope to reach the final in the 100 metres hurdles and improve the national record, which is also mine,” she said ahead of those Games, in what turned out to be a fairly accurate prediction. El Salvador finished ninth overall in the Games with 28 medals — its best third-place result in history — and Sandoval was part of the athletic fabric of that moment.
## The May 2023 Breakthrough: A Personal Best That Still Stands
Two months after the home Games, Sandoval ran the fastest 100 metres hurdles of her career. On May 7, 2023, she clocked 13.36 seconds — a mark that, as of this writing, remains her all-time personal best and is recorded with an asterisk in her World Athletics profile (indicating wind assistance), though the performance established her quality at a new level. The time came during a period of exceptional form in which she had already reset multiple indoor records and was clearly operating at a career peak.
That 13.36 is the headline number in her World Athletics profile — the time listed first, before the legal records below it. It speaks to a day when everything came together.
## Pan American Games Santiago 2023: International Ambition
Sandoval’s passage to the 2023 Santiago Pan American Games was not automatic. The federation’s administrative director, Carlos Clemente, explained the situation plainly to Diario El Salvador: “After Pablo Ibáñez, Nancy Sandoval is our second-best athlete at the national ranking level. At the recent Central American and Caribbean Games, San Salvador 2023, she reached the final in the 100 metres hurdles and set a national record, which is why we proposed her so that the Olympic Committee would propose her to PanAm Sport for a universality spot, and that’s what happened.”
The “universality” designation — a spot assigned to athletes who represent their country in events where the nation might otherwise have no representation — is how smaller athletics nations participate meaningfully in major Games. It is an honest acknowledgment of where El Salvador sits in the global athletics hierarchy, and it did nothing to diminish the significance of the moment.
The Santiago Games were, by her own account, a revelation. She ran 14.34 seconds in the semifinal of the 100 metres hurdles, finishing fifth in her heat and placing eleventh in the overall classification. The time was not her fastest, but the context mattered enormously.
“El Salvador had never had a crowd like that. I felt great emotion,” she told reporters afterward. Her words from Santiago are worth sitting with: “These are my first Pan American Games and you feel the joy of being here, of participating and being with great athletes — it’s a great experience.” And then, with the composure of someone already thinking forward: “In the next cycle I hope to reach the final and always with great desire to represent El Salvador in all the competitions of the Olympic Cycle.”
## 2025: A Silver Medal and a National Record at the Regional Level
The Central American Games in Guatemala in October 2025 confirmed Sandoval’s status as one of the region’s leading hurdlers. She won the silver medal in the women’s 100 metres hurdles, clocking 13.61 seconds — a performance that constitutes the legal national record registered on her World Athletics profile under that specific date and conditions.
The gold went to Costa Rica’s Andrea Vargas, a world-class hurdler who ran 13.27 seconds, and the bronze to Panama’s Leyka Archibold at 13.87. Sandoval’s 13.61 put her squarely on the podium and well clear of third place — a result that confirmed she belongs in the conversation at the elite regional level.
INDES El Salvador celebrated the result on social media: “Silver for Salvadoran athletics! The national Nancy Sandoval won a silver medal in the 100m hurdles senior women’s event, after registering a time of 13.61.”
The 13.61 was also logged as the current legal national record for El Salvador in the 100 metres hurdles outdoors on her World Athletics profile.
## The World Indoor Championships in Toruń, 2026
In March 2026, Sandoval made her first appearance at the World Athletics Indoor Championships, competing in the 60 metres hurdles at the Toruń Arena in Poland. She ran 8.71 seconds in her heat — the eighth time in that group, missing advancement to the semifinals by just 0.183 seconds.
The time of 8.71 was itself a new national indoor record for El Salvador in the 60 metres hurdles, improving on the 8.63 she had run on February 22, 2025. The Federación Salvadoreña de Atletismo (Fedeatletismo) officially ratified the performance and celebrated it publicly. Their statement, shared widely across Salvadoran sports media, read in part: “Nancy demonstrated her talent, discipline, and heart in every step. This triumph is not only personal but belongs to an entire country that celebrates with you. Your effort inspires new generations of athletes to dream big.”
A special acknowledgment went to coach Óscar López and to Sandoval’s family — two pillars of support that have been present throughout her career.
She was up at 5:55 in the morning in El Salvador to compete at the midday session in Poland. Sandoval shared the congratulations she received from Salvadoran sports organizations on her Instagram stories, making the celebration a collective one.
## Personal Bests and Career Record Summary
Nancy Sandoval’s official personal bests as of May 2026:
– **100 metres hurdles (wind-assisted best):** 13.36 (May 7, 2023)
– **100 metres hurdles (legal NR — national record):** 13.61 (October 19, 2025)
– **60 metres hurdles (NR — national record, indoor):** 8.63 (February 22, 2025) — later improved to 8.71 at the 2026 World Indoors
– **60 metres (national record, indoor):** 7.81 (February 11, 2023)
– **4×100 metres relay:** 47.64 (August 2, 2025, Managua)
She holds the national record in El Salvador in the 100 metres hurdles and the 60 metres hurdles, having broken and reset these marks multiple times throughout her career. Her World Athletics ranking as of early 2026 places her around #759–805 globally in the women’s 100 metres hurdles — a meaningful position that reflects both her genuine competitive level and the scale of the field she competes against.
## El Salvador’s Second-Best: The Significance of Her Ranking
When federation administrators described Sandoval as “El Salvador’s second-best athlete at the national ranking level” in 2023, the comment was meant as a straightforward summary of where she stood domestically — behind only the extraordinary Pablo Ibáñez in the hurdles hierarchy. But it also illustrated something important about the nature of her achievement.
El Salvador is a small Central American nation of roughly six and a half million people. It does not have the athletics infrastructure of Jamaica or the United States, nor the institutional support systems of larger Latin American nations like Brazil or Colombia. Its athletes compete with fewer resources, on shorter preparation calendars, and against the structural limitations that come with being a developing athletics nation. Within that context, Sandoval’s record as a multiple national record holder, a Pan American Games semifinalist, a Central American Games silver medalist, and a World Championships competitor represents a significant and genuine achievement.
She is not just the best woman hurdler in El Salvador’s history. She is demonstrably one of the best athletes the country has produced in the women’s track events, full stop.
## The Coach Behind the Record-Setter
Through every stage of her development, coach Óscar López has been the constant. He was the one who assessed her potential at the beginning, who designed the training regimes that turned her into a national record holder, who was there for the injury year of 2021 and the rebuilding of 2022, and who prepared her for the World Championships in Poland. The Fedeatletismo’s acknowledgment of López in their 2026 statement was not ceremonial — it reflected a genuine partnership that has been central to everything Sandoval has accomplished.
It is notable that coaches in small athletics nations often operate in genuinely difficult conditions: limited resources, limited access to elite training facilities, limited competitive opportunities. That López has developed an athlete capable of competing at the World Indoor Championships, from within El Salvador, is itself a story worth telling.
## Social Media and Public Presence
Sandoval maintains an active Instagram presence where she shares training updates, competition results, and personal moments. She used her Instagram stories actively during the 2026 World Indoors to share congratulations from Salvadoran sports organizations following her national record. Her social media presence reflects the dual role that modern athletes from smaller countries often occupy — simultaneously competitors on the international stage and ambassadors for their country’s sport at home.
No major international commercial sponsorships have been publicly confirmed, which is typical for athletes at her level from smaller athletics nations. Her support comes primarily from INDES (the Salvadoran national sports institute), the Fedeatletismo, and her club and family networks.
## Looking Ahead: The LA 2028 Olympic Cycle
After the Pan American Games in Santiago, Sandoval spoke about the next Olympic cycle with the measured ambition that has characterized her throughout her career: “In the next cycle I hope to reach the final and always with great desire to represent El Salvador in all the competitions of the Olympic Cycle.”
The Los Angeles 2028 Olympics are the next major target for Salvadoran athletics, and the country’s INDES program — Esfuerzo y Gloria (Effort and Glory), under which Sandoval has competed — continues to provide the institutional support that makes her training and international competition possible.
At twenty-six, Sandoval is at an age when hurdlers frequently hit their prime. Her marks have been moving in the right direction since 2018: from 14.12 to 14.10 (Iberoamerican Championships 2018) to 13.74 (CAC 2023) to 13.62 (CAC 2023 semifinal) to 13.36 (wind-assisted, May 2023) to 13.61 (legal national record, CAC 2025). The indoor times have followed the same pattern of steady, documented improvement.
Every one of those times has been a national record or competitive benchmark. Every one of them was set by the same person who started out in combined events, transitioned to jumps, and found her home between the hurdles.
The national record books in El Salvador keep needing to be updated. Nancy Sandoval keeps being the reason why.
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*Personal bests and national records current as of May 2026 based on World Athletics data and Fedeatletismo official results.*
