Manuela Machado

Personal information
Born	9 August 1963 (1963-08-09) (age 60)
Medal record Women's Athletics Representing  Portugal World Championships 1995 Gothenburg Marathon 1993 Stuttgart Marathon 1997 Athens Marathon European Championships 1994 Helsinki Marathon 1998 Budapest Marathon

Maria Manuela Machado (born 9 August 1963 in Viana do Castelo) is a former Portuguese long-distance runner, who was particularly successful when running the marathon. Unlike many other marathoners, she did not focus on running lucrative city marathons. Instead, she participated in major competitions (which were less monetarily profitable).

Machado participated in the marathon in every major competition between 1990 and 2000. In her first major competition, the 1990 European Championships in Athletics in Split, she placed tenth. She placed seventh in both the 1991 World Championships in Athletics in Tokyo and the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. Machado won her first medal in a major competition in the 1993 World Championships in Athletics in Stuttgart when she came in second in the marathon.^[1][2] She won the 1994 European Championships in Helsinki and the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg. In the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, she once again placed seventh.

At the 1997 World Championships in Athens, Machado once again won a silver medal. The next year, in Budapest, she won the European Championships again. Although she placed seventh in the 1999 World Championships in Seville, she only managed a 21st place in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

Machado represented the Sporting Clube de Braga. She ran her personal best (2:25.09) in the London Marathon in 1999 (and was the third woman to cross the finish line). Machado continued Portugal's successful run in the marathon that Rosa Mota had started. The women's marathon has been part of the European Championships since 1982, and the first time that a non-Portuguese marathoner won the European Championships was at the 2002 European Championships in Munich when Maria Guida of Italy won.

Achievements

Year	Competition	Venue	Position	Event	Notes
Representing  Portugal
1990	European Championships	Split, SFR Yugoslavia	10th	Marathon	2:39:49
1991	World Championships	Tokyo, Japan	7th	Marathon	2:32:33
1992	Olympic Games	Barcelona, Spain	7th	Marathon	2:38:22
1993	World Championships	Stuttgart, Germany	2nd	Marathon	2:30:54
	Lisbon Marathon	Lisbon, Portugal	1st	Marathon	2:31:31
1994	European Championships	Helsinki, Finland	1st	Marathon	2:29.54
1995	World Championships	Gothenburg, Sweden	1st	Marathon	2:25:39
1996	Olympic Games	Atlanta, United States	7th	Marathon	2:31:11
1997	World Championships	Athens, Greece	2nd	Marathon	2:31:12
1998	Ibero-American Championships	Lisbon, Portugal	3rd	10,000 m	33:14.60
	European Championships	Budapest, Hungary	1st	Marathon	2:27:10
1999	World Championships	Seville, Spain	7th	Marathon	2:29:11
2000	Olympic Games	Sydney, Australia	21st	Marathon	2:32:29