Fernando Eugénio Pacheco Mamede, ComM (born 1 November 1951) is a former Portuguese

athlete An athlete (also sportsman or sportswoman) is a person who competes in one or more sports that involve physical strength, speed, or endurance. Athletes may be professionals or amateurs. Most professional athletes have particularly well-dev ...

, a

long distance running Long-distance running, or endurance running, is a form of continuous running over distances of at least . Physiologically, it is largely aerobic in nature and requires stamina as well as mental strength. Within endurance running comes two ...

specialist. He was born in Beja. Together with Carlos Lopes, he is one of the best Portuguese male long distance runners ever, and held the

10,000 metres The 10,000 metres or the 10,000-metre run is a common long-distance track running event. The event is part of the athletics programme at the Olympic Games and the World Athletics Championships, and is common at championship level events. The ra ...

world record (1984-1989) with a time of 27:13.81 until bettered by

Arturo Barrios Arturo Barrios Flores (born December 12, 1962 in Mexico City) is a Mexican long-distance runner who set the 10,000 m world record in 1989, the one hour world record in 1991, and the 20,000 m world record en route to the one hour run world reco ...

of Mexico. He also competed at three Olympic Games. However, he never won any high-level competition as he dealt very badly with pressure. In the European and World Athletics Championships and Olympics where he competed between 1971 and 1984, he either was eliminated from the finals, placed outside the top ten runners in them or dropped out of the final. In the

1983 World Championships in Athletics The 1st 1983 World Championships in Athletics were run under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations and were held at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, Finland between 7 and 14 August 1983. Summary The overall med ...

and the

1984 Los Angeles Olympics The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the secon ...

, he ran excellently in the 10,000-metre qualifying heats, but he placed 14th in the World Championships final and failed to finish in the Olympic final. He remains one of fastest Europeans of all time in the

.10,000 Metres All Time

IAAF World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body fo ...

(2009-08-25). Retrieved on 2010-01-31. Mamede also competed in

cross country running Cross country running is a sport in which teams and individuals run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain such as dirt or grass. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open ...

, taking part in the

IAAF World Cross Country Championships World Athletics Cross Country Championships is the most important competition in international cross country running. Formerly held annually and organised by World Athletics (formerly the IAAF), it was inaugurated in 1973, when it replaced the Int ...

eleven times. His cross country career was highlighted by a bronze medal at the 1981 IAAF World Cross Country Championships and two wins at the

Cross Internacional de Itálica The Cross Internacional de Itálica is an annual cross country running competition that is held every January in Santiponce, near Seville, Spain. Inaugurated in 1982, the race course is set in the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Itálica. A ...

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mamede, Fernando 1951 births Living people People from Beja, Portugal Portuguese male long-distance runners Athletes (track and field) at the 1972 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1976 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1984 Summer Olympics Olympic athletes for Portugal World record setters in athletics (track and field) Sportspeople from Beja District