Maria de Lurdes Mutola

Maria Mutola

Mutola in 2008 at the World Indoor Championships in Valencia
Personal information
Nickname(s)	Maputo Express, Lurdinha
Nationality	Mozambican
Born	(1972-10-27) 27 October 1972 (age 44) Lourenço Marques, Mozambique
Height	1.65 m (5 ft 5 in)
Weight	63 kg (139 lb)
Sport
Sport	Track and field
Event(s)	800 metres, 1500 metres
Achievements and titles
Personal best(s)	400 m: 51.37 (1994) 800 m: 1:55.19 (1994) 1500 m: 4:01.50 (2002)
Medal record Women's athletics Representing  Mozambique Event 1st 2nd 3rd Olympic Games 1 0 1 World Championships 3 1 2 World Indoor Championships 7 1 1 African Championships 5 3 0 Commonwealth Games 2 1 0 All-Africa Games 3 0 0 Total 21 6 4 Event 1st 2nd 3rd 800 m 20 6 4 1500 m 1 0 0 Olympic Games 2000 Sydney 800 m 1996 Atlanta 800 m World Championships 1993 Stuttgart 800 m 2001 Edmonton 800 m 2003 Paris 800 m 1999 Seville 800 m 1997 Athens 800 m 2005 Helsinki 800 m World Indoor Championships 1993 Toronto 800 m 1995 Barcelona 800 m 1997 Paris 800 m 2001 Lisbon 800 m 2003 Birmingham 800 m 2004 Budapest 800 m 2006 Moscow 800 m 1999 Maebashi 800 m 2008 Valencia 800 m Commonwealth Games 1998 Kuala Lumpur 800 m 2002 Manchester 800 m 2006 Melbourne 800 m All-Africa Games 1991 Cairo 800 m 1995 Harare 800 m 1999 Johannesburg 800 m African Championships 1990 Cairo 800 m 1990 Cairo 1500 m 1993 Durban 800 m 1998 Dakar 800 m 2002 Tunis 800 m 1988 Annaba 800 m 2006 Bambous 800 m 2008 Addis Ababa 800 m Representing Africa World Cup 1992 Havana 800 m 1994 London 800 m 1998 Johannesburg 800 m 2002 Madrid 800 m

Maria de Lurdes Mutola (born 27 October 1972) is a retired female track and field athlete from Mozambique who specialised in the 800 metres running event. She is only the fourth athlete to compete at six Olympic Games. She is a three-time world champion in this event and a one-time Olympic champion.

Although Mutola never broke the world record in her favourite event, she is regarded by many track insiders and fans as one of the greatest 800 metres female runners of all time due to her consistently good results in major championships and her exceptional longevity which saw her compete at the highest level for two decades before retiring from athletics in 2008 at the age of 35. She is also the only athlete ever to have won Olympic, World, World indoor, Commonwealth Games, Continental Games and Continental Championships titles in the same event.

Mutola was born in 1972 in the poor shanty town of Chamanculo on the outskirts of Maputo, then known as Lourenço Marques, the capital of Portuguese Mozambique. Her father was employed by the railways and her mother was a market vendor. As a young girl she excelled in football. She played with boys, as there were no leagues or teams for girls. In 1988, at only 15 years of age, she was encouraged to take up athletics by one of Mozambique's foremost literary figures, the poet José Craveirinha, who was a keen sports fan. His son Stelio, himself a former national long jump record holder who had competed in the 1980 Summer Olympics, was Mutola's first coach. Not used to the intensive training, Mutola initially decided that running was not for her, but was persuaded to continue when it became obvious that she had immense potential.

After a visit to Portugal, plans were made for her to join the Lisbon-based Benfica athletics club, but at the last minute Mozambican government denied her permission. That year, after only a few months' training, she won a silver medal in the 800 metres at the 1988 African Championships in Annaba, Algeria before competing in the 1988 Summer Olympics less than a month later. She ran a personal best time of 2:04.36, but only finished seventh in her first round heat, failing to progress to the semi-finals. Mutola was still only fifteen years old.