Pink Mota

Rosa Mota, 2012

Rosa Mota ([ ʁɵzɐ mɵtɐ ], Rosa Maria Correia dos Santos Mota ; born June 29, 1958 in Porto ) is a former Portuguese long-distance runner and Olympic champion .

biography

Mota began to take part in cross-country runs during her school days . In 1980 she met Pedro Pedrosa , the man who was her personal trainer until the end of her sports career . At the European Championships in Athens in 1982, a marathon for women took place for the first time in international championships. It was also Mota's first ever marathon in which she beat the favorite Ingrid Kristiansen . She was able to defend her title at the 1986 European Championships in Stuttgart and at the 1990 European Championships in Split.

At the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles she won the bronze medal, a year later she set her best time of 2:23:29 h at the Chicago Marathon , which she had won in the previous two years, but was only third behind Joan Benoit and Ingrid Kristiansen. At the 1987 World Championships , she won the marathon seven minutes behind the runner-up, and at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, she crowned her career with an Olympic gold medal.

She won the Boston Marathon three times (1987, 1988 and 1990), once the Tokyo International Women's Marathon (1986), and in 1991, at the end of her competitive sports career, she won the London Marathon .

A nossa Rosinha ("our little pink"), as she is sometimes called by her compatriots, is one of the most famous Portuguese sports personalities, alongside Eusébio , Carlos Lopes and Luís Figo . For her further development of long distance training methods, she received the Abebe Bikila Prize . Before the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, she carried the Olympic torch for a while . Rosa Mota is involved in various charitable organizations and was a member of the Portuguese Parliament .

Web links

Commons : Rosa Mota  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Rosa Mota in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Portrait on time-to-run.com (Engl.)