Maria Mutola
Maria de Lurdes Mutola ( born October 27, 1972 in Maputo ) is a Mozambican former middle distance runner. Your special discipline was the 800 - meter race in which she was beaten between 1999 and 2004 in any major race. From the introduction of the IAAF World Ranking 2001 until July 2005 she was world number one.
Sports career
About the 800 m Mutola was in her extraordinarily long career, three-time world champion, namely at the World Athletics Championships in 1993, the 2001 World Championships and the World Championships in 2003. Added to a second place finish at the 1999 World Championships, third at the 1997 World Championships and a fourth at the 1991 World Championships, her first participation.
At the Olympic Summer Games 2000 Mutola finally won the gold medal that she could not win as Mitfavoritin at the Games in 1992 and the Games in 1996 against the surprise winners Ellen van Langen and Svetlana Masterkowa. In 2004, she most recently served as Mitfavoritin in the final, but lost to her training partner Kelly Holmes. In Beijing 2008, she was fifth. Completing the list of achievements by seven wins at World Indoor Championships, four African Championships and three titles at the All-Africa Games as well as numerous Grand Prix victories.
Maria Mutola has a competition weight of 50 kg at a height of 1.67 m. She's athlete ambassador of development organization Right to Play. In 2001, she founded in the Mozambican capital Maputo Fundação Lurdes Mutola ( Lurdes - Mutola Foundation), which supports athletes in the entire country. In 2006 she was given the honor to participate as one of eight winners of the Olympic flag at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Turin. In 2007 she was nominated by the World Economic Forum for the social commitment of its foundation as a Young Global Leader.
On " World Class Zurich » Meeting on August 29, 2008 Maria Mutola finished her international career. She then returned to the sport of football, which she had already operated as a 14 -year-old and even before the start of her successful career as an athlete. In the 2009/10 season they played at the Johannesburg club Luso Africa in South Africa's first women's league in the following season with the Mamelodi Sundowns in Pretoria. In September 2011, she gave 39 years as a captain her debut in Mozambique's national team in the football tournament staged in Mozambique Pan-African Games. They scored the only goal for her team, which has already eliminated in the group stage after two defeats.
At the request of the South African middle distance runner Caster Semenya Mutola looked after them from the end of 2011 as a trainer on their way to the Olympic Games in London 2012., Where Semenya won the silver medal over 800 meters.
Personal best
- 800 meters: 1:55,19 minutes, August 17, 1994 in Zurich
- 1500 meters: 4:01,50 minutes, July 12, 2002 in Rome