Vanderlei de Lima

Vanderlei de Lima ( Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima, born August 11, 1969 in Cruzeiro do Oeste, Paraná ) is a Brazilian long distance runner who specializes in the marathon.

Life and work

In 1996 he won the Tokyo International Women's Marathon in 2:08:38 h, 1997, he was second at the Seoul International Marathon and finished at the World Athletics Championships in Athens the 23th Place and in 1998 he was second in Tokyo in his personal best of 2: 8:31 and fifth at the New York City Marathon. In 1999, he won the marathon the Pan American Games in Winnipeg and was third at the Fukuoka Marathon in 2:08:40, and the following year he was third at the Rotterdam Marathon in 2:08:34 and finished the marathon in the Olympic Games in Sydney the 75th place.

In 2002, he won the Sao Paulo Marathon and the 2004 Hamburg Marathon in 2:09:39

In a marathon run of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens he became world famous by a spectacular incident. He already broke away at km 20 from the rest of the field and in the meantime had a lead of one and a half minutes on the chasing pack. Five kilometers to the projection had shrunk to just over half a minute, as, was dragged from the street De Lima of Cornelius Horan, who jumped out of the crowd. The Brazilian lost because of this incident, about 20 seconds, came out of the rhythm and was overtaken shortly after by Stefano Baldini and Keflezighi Mebrahtom. However, De Lima persevered and was able to defend until the finish the bronze medal.

Later it became known that the interferer, the Irishman Cornelius Horan was a religious fanatic, who had already taken care of in various other sporting events, for incidents. Jacques Rogge, the IOC President, presented on August 29, 2004 de Lima the Pierre de Coubertin medal for exemplary sportsmanship.