Maria Mutola

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 female track and field athlete to compete at six Olympic Games.

She is a three-time world champion in this event and a one-time Olympic champion.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

She faced little opposition in Mozambique and only trained properly in the run-up to big competitions.

Attempts were made to organise scholarships for her to train abroad, but it was not 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 of the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo, where her time of 1:57.63 constituted a world junior record.

Mutola lost out on a medal because she was severely impeded, elbowed twice by Ella Kovacs as she tried to pass in the final few metres.

On the finish line, Kovacs fell across the line ahead of Mutola, reaching out and tripping race winner Lilia Nurutdinova as well.

A protest was lodged but it was unsuccessful.

Her immense success and her total domination of the event during this period can be attributed to the guidance that she has received since 1991 from Margo Jennings.

Jennings was a track coach at Springfield High School and continued to coach Mutola, even when she had relocated from Oregon to Johannesburg to escape the high pollen count in Oregon.

Jennings would fax Mutola's training schedules to her in South Africa, and has also coached other world class 800 m runners like Kelly Holmes, Namibian athlete Agnes Samaria and Tina Paulino, who is a distant relative of Mutola's.

At the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona there were great hopes for Mutola to win Mozambique's first Olympic medal.

She ran strongly but faded badly in the home straight, eventually finishing fifth behind winner Ellen van Langen.

At the same Olympics, Mutola ran one of the few 1500 m races at an international championship, placing ninth in the final.

That same year she also won the 800 m event at the 1992 IAAF World Cup in Havana, and was the only woman to beat Ellen van Langen throughout the whole year.

Over the next few years, Mutola dominated the 800 m event, winning the 800 m title at the 1993 and 1995 World Indoor Championships and the 1993 World Championships.

At the latter event, held in Stuttgart, she won by over two seconds, the biggest ever winning margin in an international women's 800 m final.

A favourite for the world outdoor title in 1995 as well, she was disqualified in her semi-final for stepping outside of 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 with a time of 2:29.34, becoming the first woman ever to run the distance in less than two and a half minutes.

She also went on to break the world indoor record for 1000 m. 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 finished 1st to Quirot's 5th.

At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Mutola was a hot favourite for the gold, as she hadn't been beaten in an 800 m final since 1992 and her winning streak stretched to over forty 800 m and 1000 m finals.

However, suffering from flu, she ended up finishing third behind surprise winner Svetlana Masterkova and Ana Quirot.

The Russians had also used team tactics with Masterkova's teammate and Britain's Kelly Holmes working to box in both Quirot and Mutola with Masterkova in front, leaving them too much ground to make up near the end.

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.

She is also the main coach and mentor of Caster Semenya.