FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sara Moreira has Rosa Mota's Marathon Record in her Sights
Third place in New York on her debut, runner-up in her second marathon in
Prague on Sunday – if Sara Moreira carries on like this, she'll win her
next marathon. And that would be no surprise at all. The Portuguese runner
showed at the Volkswagen Prague Marathon that she is one of Europe's
greatest hopes for the classic road racing distance. On Sunday she improved
her personal best of 2:26:00 from New York last November by more than a
minute to 2:24:49. That left Sara Moreira just 80 seconds short of the
national marathon record achieved by Portugal's legendary Rosa Mota. The
1988 Olympic Marathon champion ran 2:23:29 to finish third in Chicago in
1985.
"I never really thought I would run the marathon," reflected Moreira. "I
always saw myself as a track and cross country runner." The 10,000 metres
will continue to be the priority for the 29-year-old this year, where she
plans to run the distance at the World Championships in Beijing this
summer. She already has the qualifying time, having run a personal best of
31:12.93 at Huelva in Spain in April.
After her second impressive performance in the marathon, Sara Moreira
remained convinced that her immediate future was on the track: "I don't see
myself as a marathon runner. In the short term I'll be running track, cross
country and shorter road races up to half marathon. "But that might change.
If I could run a time similar to what I've done in Prague, I would prefer
to run the marathon at the Olympic Games in Rio next year," explained the
2013 European Indoor champion over 3,000m.
The fact that she ran a marathon at all is down to the New York organisers
inviting her. After her strong debut in the Big Apple last November, the
London Marathon made her an offer. "I couldn't turn that down," said
Moreira, but she then suffered an injury after the 10,000m race in Huelva
and didn't recover in time to run London. That's how she came to run in
Prague at short notice.
Her training, supervised by husband and coach Pedro Ribeiro, is now geared
more to the marathon than 10,000m. There are no plans for altitude training
and she prefers to prepare at home just north of Porto, so they can look
after Guillermo, their eighteen-month-old son.
In response to the question why Portugal has consistently produced women
runners of high standard, Moreira says: "We have a lot of strong
competition nationally and that produces good performances." Her main
inspiration has been Fernanda Ribeiro, the 1996 Olympic 10,000m champion.
Rosa Mota's great performances were before her time since Moreira was born
three days before the Olympic champion broke the Portuguese record in 1985.
But she has Mota's time of 2:23:29 firmly in her sights. "I believe I can
break the record one day."
For more information online please go
to www.runczech.com
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