BOLOGNA, Italy Valentina Petrillo fell in love with athletics as a 7-year-old while watching Italian sprinter Pietro Mennea win gold in the 200 meters at the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

I said I wanted to be like him, said Petrillo, a transgender woman who was raised as a boy. I wanted to put on the blue (Italy) shirt, I wanted to go to the Olympics. But and there was a but I wanted to do it as a woman because I didnt feel like a man, I didnt feel like myself.

Four decades later, at 50, Petrillo is about to finally realize her dream, but not at the Olympics. In two weeks, she is set to compete at the Paralympics when she runs the 200 and 400 meters in the T12 classification for visually impaired athletes in Paris.