Maria de lourdes mutola biography sample

Mozambican middle-distance runner

Maria de Lurdes Mutola (mə-REE-ə moo-TOH-lə; born 27 October 1972) is a retired Mozambican female track and field who technical in the 800 metres running event. She is only description fourth female track and field athlete to compete at sise Olympic Games. She is a three-time world champion in that event and a one-time Olympic champion.

Although Mutola never indigent the world record in her favourite event, she is regarded by many track insiders and fans as one of depiction greatest 800 metres female runners of all time due surrender her consistently good results in major championships and her sole longevity which saw her compete at the highest level care for two decades before retiring from athletics in 2008 at say publicly age of 35. She is also the only athlete period to have won Olympic, World, World indoor, Commonwealth Games, Transcontinental Games and Continental Championships titles in the same event.^{[citation needed]} She is also the main coach and mentor of Shaker Semenya.

Career

Early years

Mutola was born in 1972 in the destitute shanty town of Chamanculo on the outskirts of Maputo, exploitation known as Lourenço Marques, the capital of Portuguese Mozambique.^[1] Remove father was employed by the railways and her mother was a market vendor. As a young girl she excelled look onto football. She played with boys, as there were no leagues or teams for girls. At only 14 years of brand, she was encouraged to take up athletics by one comatose Mozambique's foremost literary figures, the poet José Craveirinha, who was a keen sports fan.^[2] His son Stelio, himself a onetime national long jump record holder who had competed in interpretation 1980 Summer Olympics, was Mutola's first coach. Not used effect the intensive training, Mutola initially decided that running was put together for her, but was persuaded to continue when it became obvious that she had immense potential.^{[citation needed]}

After a visit correspond with Portugal, plans were made for her to join the Lisbon-based Benfica athletics club, but at the last minute Mozambican authority denied her permission. The next year, after several months' routine, she won a silver medal in the 800 metres rope in the 1988 African Championships in Annaba, Algeria before competing tackle the 1988 Summer Olympics less than a month later. She ran a personal best time of 2:04.36, but only refine seventh in her first round heat, failing to progress agree to the semi-finals. Mutola was still only fifteen years old.^[3]

Studying extort training in the United States

Over the next few years Mutola failed to improve on her best time, but still won gold at the African Championships in Cairo in 1990.^[4] She faced little opposition in Mozambique and only trained properly hutch the run-up to big competitions. Attempts were made to manage scholarships for her to train abroad, but it was troupe until 1991 that, thanks to an IOC solidarity programme, she was awarded a scholarship to go to the United States to study and train. Springfield High School in Oregon was her host school, due to the fact that there was a Portuguese-speaking staff member (since Mutola spoke no English).

She quickly surprised many by finishing fourth in the final endowment the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo, where her time method 1:57.63 constituted a world junior record. Mutola lost out error of judgment a medal because she was severely impeded, elbowed twice uninviting Ella Kovacs as she tried to pass in the ending few metres. On the finish line, Kovacs fell across interpretation line ahead of Mutola, reaching out and tripping race conquering hero Lilia Nurutdinova as well. A protest was lodged but kosher was unsuccessful. At the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona contemporary were great hopes for Mutola to win Mozambique's first Athletics medal. She ran strongly but faded badly in the constituent straight, eventually finishing fifth behind winner Ellen van Langen. Mock the same Olympics, Mutola ran one of the few 1500 m races at an international championship, placing ninth in say publicly final. That same year she also won the 800 m event at the 1992 IAAF World Cup in Havana, enthralled was the only woman to beat Ellen van Langen all the way through the whole year.

Athletic domination

Over the next few years, Mutola dominated the 800 m event, winning the 800 m caption at the 1993 and 1995 World Indoor Championships and depiction 1993 World Championships. At the latter event, held in Metropolis, she won by over two seconds, the biggest ever engaging margin in an international women's 800 m final.^{[citation needed]} A favourite for the world outdoor title in 1995 as be a success, she was disqualified in her semi-final for stepping outside fall for her lane. Some consolation came at the Memorial Van Damme meeting in Brussels a few weeks after the World Championships, when she broke the world record for 1000 m blank a time of 2:29.34, becoming the first woman ever offer run the distance in less than two and a division minutes. She also went on to break the world inside record for 1000 m.^{[citation needed]} She also went undefeated (3-0) vs that years World Champion Ana Quirot, including crushing Quirot at the season ending Grand Prix final where she done 1st to Quirot's 5th.

Her immense success and her demolish domination of the event during this period can be attributed to the guidance that she has received since 1991 dismiss Margo Jennings. Jennings was a track coach at Springfield Extraordinary School and continued to coach Mutola, even when she esoteric relocated from Oregon to Johannesburg to escape the high allergen count in Oregon. Jennings would fax Mutola's training schedules watchdog her in South Africa, and has also coached other sphere class 800 m runners like Kelly Holmes, Namibian athlete Agnes Samaria and Tina Paulino, who is a distant relative accuse Mutola's.

At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Mutola was a hot favourite for the gold, as she hadn't anachronistic beaten in an 800 m final since 1992 and shepherd winning streak stretched to over forty 800 m and c m finals. However, suffering from flu, she ended up prejudice third behind surprise winner Svetlana Masterkova and Ana Quirot. Picture Russians had also used team tactics with Masterkova's teammate careful Britain's Kelly Holmes working to box in both Quirot tell Mutola with Masterkova in front, leaving them too much delivery to make up near the end. Later in 1996 Mutola lost her world 1000 m record to Masterkova in a hard-fought head-to-head duel.

Mutola was known as the complete case as an 800-metre runner. She had tremendous strength, and would turn in numerous impressive 1500 metres performances through her job. She had blazing speed, and a very strong finishing punt. She also was a smart and calculated tactical racer, who understood her competitors and their strengths and weaknesses well, celebrated how to position herself throughout a race. She was fit running and winning races from either the front or representation back. Most of all she had an unwavering determination forbear win, rarely ever matched in women's middle-distance running.

Status inferior 800 m race history

Mutola is often ranked as one look up to the greatest female 800 m runners of all time, and make somebody's acquaintance some even the best. She has not gained a replica record in the event, but her consistency, her performances mock major championships and her ability to compete at the maximal levels of the sport for two decades are unmatched – the 2008 Olympics were her sixth consecutive Olympics. She does however have a 0–4 record against her rival Ana Quirot in World and Olympic competition, and Quirot ran sub-1:55 show reluctance vs. Mutola's career best of 1:55.16.^[5] In terms of wide championship gold medals however, Mutola bests Quirot in Olympic titles (1–0), outdoor World titles (3-2) and indoor World titles (7-0). Mutola and Quirot are good friends to this day last often write one another, and Mutola often wrote Quirot letters of encouragement to return to Track and Field following gibe near fatal heavy burn explosion.

Mutola won bronze in interpretation 1997 IAAF World Championships in Athletics and silver in 1999. She also won the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Diversion in 1997, only weeks after her father had been fasten in a car accident. She raced wearing a black row and dedicated the victory to his memory. In total she has won nine world 800 m titles, including both indoor humbling outdoor championships. She won the Commonwealth Games twice, after Mocambique was admitted to the Commonwealth in 1995, and has as well won the IAAF World Cup event, representing the Africa unit, four times consecutively.

Her greatest moment, though, came at depiction Sydney Olympics in 2000, when Mutola finally won Olympic metallic. She beat her major rival Stephanie Graf and Kelly Author. She returned to Mozambique after her Olympic victory, huge crowds came to cheer her and a road was named provision her in Maputo.

She continued her successes in the 2001 season, grabbing the world title in Edmonton and again heavens 2003 in Paris. It was widely felt that Mutola ran tactically during the 2003 race by setting a slow keep up in order to aid her training partner Kelly Holmes. Monkey a result of such a strategy Holmes was able join take silver. Mutola was unbeaten throughout 2003 and grabbed say publicly headlines again that year, at the Memorial Van Damme turkey in Belgium. By winning here, it meant that she became sole winner of the 2003 IAAF Golden League one trillion dollar jackpot, awarded to athletes who remained undefeated in buzz six competitions in the season. She put part of disintegrate winnings towards the foundation that she had established in restlessness name in Mozambique.

Aiming to become the first woman predict successfully defend the Olympic 800 m title in 2004, her ordinal Olympics, Mutola ended up finishing fourth. Despite carrying a sinew injury, Mutola was in the gold medal position until rendering final few metres, when three athletes passed her, including description eventual champion, her former training partner Kelly Holmes. In 2005, her injuries were still lingering and she suffered several sufferers to opponents she would normally easily beat. Mutola finished ordinal in the 800 m at the 2005 World Championships jagged Helsinki; third-place winner Tatyana Andrianova was retroactively suspended for a doping violation in 2015. A later test invalidated Andrianova's results from 9 August 2005 through 8 August 2007. On Apr 14, 2016, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) wrong side up Andrianova's two-year doping suspension because her sample had been re-tested beyond the eight-year statute of limitations. "As the eight-year decree of limitations had expired prior to January 1, 2015, depiction 10-year statute of limitations provided under the new 2015 anti-doping rules cannot apply", CAS said in a statement.^[6]

Mutola parted amicably with her coach Margo Jennings, before returning to good crumb in 2006, when she won the World Indoor Championships christen for a record seventh time. At the 2007 IAAF Fake Championships, Mutola was in contention for a medal entering happen upon the home straight, but pulled out of the race remove the dying metres.

In 2008, the 800 metres African transcribe held by Mutola, was beaten by the young Pamela Jelimo of Kenya.^[7] Mutola had decided that the 2008 Olympic Doggeds would be her last major championships, and she finished ordinal in the 800 metres Olympic final. She publicly called alteration end to her 21-year-long athletics career at the Weltklasse Zürich meeting immediately after the Olympics. She finished fourth with a run of 1:58.71 in the 800 m, again behind Jelimo, who completed a symbolic feat by beating Mutola's meet record which had stood since 1994.^[8]

Her appearance at the 2008 Olympics idea her only the fourth female track and field athlete happen next compete at six Olympics, after Lia Manoliu (discus), Tessa Sanderson (javelin/heptathlon), and seven-time Olympian Merlene Ottey (sprints).

Other work

She was appointed an honorary United Nationsyouth ambassador in 2003 at a ceremony in Maputo, in recognition of her outstanding athletic achievements. Other youth ambassadors are musician Baaba Maal and basketball knowledge Dikembe Mutombo. She cited the importance of raising awareness domination HIV/AIDS issues amongst young people in Africa and also highlighted the benefits that sport can bring to young people. Surely, her Lurdes Mutola Foundation aims to bring more young Mozambicans to sport and to assist in helping them achieve their sporting and educational potential. Other initiatives that Mutola and have time out Foundation have been involved in include a Ministry of Insect / UNICEF immunisation campaign against measles and polio and houses development initiatives in Maputo. Even before the establishment of say publicly Foundation, she had played an active role in supporting accompany in Maputo. She gave financial support that allowed an simulated track to be constructed on the sports ground at which she had originally trained as a fifteen-year-old. She also authoritative the sale of T-shirts that featured her image, profits exaggerate which went towards helping the Grupo Desportivo de Maputo effortlessness of financial difficulty.

At the 2006 Winter Olympics she was one of the eight Olympic flag bearers at the Breach Ceremony.

After retiring from athletics she returned to her leading sporting love, football. She played for Mamelodi Sundowns team smudge the South African women's league. In 2011, she was skipper of the Mozambique women's national football team at the All-Africa Games in Maputo.

In 2012, she coached South African racer Caster Semenya to a silver medal at the Olympic Bolds in London.

Achievements

International competitions

Personal bests

800 m honours

• Olympic Games: 1988 primary round; 1992 5th and 9th 1500 m; 1996 3rd; 2000 1st; 2004 4th; 2008 5th
• World Championships: 1991 4th; 1993 1st; 1995 disqualified semi final; 1997 3rd; 1999 2nd; 2001 1st; 2003 1st, 2005 4th, 2007 Did not Finish Final
• World Inside Championships: 1993 1st; 1995 1st; 1997 1st; 1999 2nd; 2001 1st; 2003 1st; 2004 1st; 2006 1st; 2007 3rd
• World Cup: 1992 1st and 3rd 4 × 400 m Relay; 1994 1st; 1998 1st; 2002 1st and 4th 4 × Cardinal m Relay
• All-Africa Games: 1991 1st; 1995 1st; 1999 1st
• African Championships: 1988 2nd; 1990 1st and 1st 1500 m; 1993 1st; 1998 1st; 2002 1st; 2006 2nd; 2008 2nd
• Commonwealth Games: 1998 1st; 2002 1st; 2006 3rd

Awards

See also

References

External links