Inês Alexandra das Neves Monteiro (born 18 May 1980) is a Portuguese athlete who competes in middle and long-distance track running, as well as

road running Road running is the sport of running on a measured course over an established road. This differs from track and field on a regular track and cross country running over natural terrain. These events are usually classified as long-distance ru ...

and cross country. She started out as a cross country runner, winning a silver and a gold medal at the 1998 and 1999 European junior race. She has represented Portugal at the

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

and

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fro ...

, and has competed twice at the

World Championships in Athletics The World Athletics Championships, known as the IAAF World Championships in Athletics until 2019, are a biennial athletics competition organized by World Athletics, formerly International Association of Athletics Federations. Alongside Olympic ...

. She is a regular performer at 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 In ...

, generally finishing around 30th place. Monteiro made her

marathon The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of kilometres ( 26 mi 385 yd), usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There ...

debut in 2008 and finished fifth at the

Rotterdam Marathon The Rotterdam Marathon, currently branded NN Rotterdam Marathon, is an annual marathon that has been held in Rotterdam, Netherlands since 1981. It has been held in April every year since the third edition in 1984 and attracts many top athletes. ...

. She is the most successful athlete at the Cidade de Ovar Half Marathon, having won the competition six times.Cidade de Ovar Half Marathon

Association of Road Running Statisticians The Association of Road Racing Statisticians is an independent, non-profit organization that collects, analyzes, and publishes statistics regarding road running races. The primary purpose of the ARRS is to maintain a valid list of world road record ...

(2008-11-14). Retrieved on 2009-11-22. She represents Maratona Clube de Portugal in club competitions.Inês Monteiro venceu Corta-Mato Nacional
A Guarda (2009-03-17). Retrieved on 2009-11-22.

Career

Early career

Born in Ramela, Guarda,

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

, Inês Monteiro first experienced success in professional

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competitio ...

at cross country competitions: she won the silver medal in the junior race at the 1998 European Cross Country Championships and took the gold the following year.Fernandes, António Manuel (2008-11-15)
Masai dominates; Augusto defeated by Monteiro in Oeiras

IAAF World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation and International Association of Athletics Federations and formerly abbreviated as the IAAF, is the international sports governing body, governing body for the sport ...

. Retrieved on 2009-11-22. On the world stage, she reached the

5000 metres The 5000 metres or 5000-metre run is a common long-distance running event in track and field, approximately equivalent to or . It is one of the track events in the Olympic Games and the World Championships in Athletics, run over laps of a sta ...

final at the

1998 World Junior Championships in Athletics The 1998 World Junior Championships in Athletics is the 1998 edition of the World Junior Championships in Athletics. It was held in Annecy, France from July 28 to August 2. Results Men 1 Ahmed Baday of Morocco originally won the bronze medal ...

and competed in the junior race at the

1998 IAAF World Cross Country Championships The 1998 IAAF World Cross Country Championships took place on March 21/22, 1998. The races were held at the Menara district in Marrakech, Morocco. Reports of the event were given in ''The New York Times'', in the Herald, and for the IAAF. ...

. She improved her position for the 1999 edition in Ireland, finishing in thirteenth.

Senior competitions

She progressed to senior races in 2000, competing in the short race at the World Cross Country Championships and winning the Cidade de Ovar Half Marathon in 1:12:24. She finished seventh at the

2001 European Cross Country Championships The 8th European Cross Country Championships were held at Thun in Switzerland on 9 December 2001. Serhiy Lebid took his second title in the men's competition and Yamna Belkacem won the women's race. Results Men individual 9.15 km Total 77 ...

but she won a gold medal as part of the best performing team. Track running became her focus in 2002, but she failed to make the

3000 metres The 3000 metres or 3000-metre run is a track running event, also commonly known as the "3K" or "3K run", where 7.5 laps are run around an outdoor 400 m track, or 15 laps around a 200 m indoor track. It is debated whether the 3000 m sho ...

final at the

2002 European Athletics Indoor Championships The 2002 European Athletics Indoor Championships were held from Friday, 1 March to Sunday, 3 March 2002 in Vienna, the capital city of Austria. This was the last edition to be held in an even year to avoid it occurring in the same year as the outdo ...

and finishing in 12th in the 5000 m final at the

2002 European Athletics Championships The 18th European Athletics Championships were held from 6 August to 11 August 2002 in the Olympic Stadium of Munich, Germany. Men's results Track 1994 , 1998 , 2002 , 2006 , 2010 , 1 Dwain Chambers originally won the 100 m in 9.96 and was pa ...

. However, she guided her team at the 2002 European Cross Country Championships to a silver team medal. At the World Student Games that year she managed to win bronze in the cross country. A second win at the Ovar Half Marathon in October was soon followed by a win in

Azambuja Azambuja (), officially the Town of Azambuja (), is a municipality in the Portuguese district of Lisbon, in the historical region of Ribatejo (and the sole municipality of within the district that does not belong to the historical province of E ...

which made her the 15 km national champion. She did not break into the top thirty at either the 2002 or 2003 World Cross Country Championships. She represented Portugal at the Olympics for the first time at the 2004 Athens Games. Running in the

, she performed poorly and finished 18th with 16:03.75 – fifty seconds slower than her best that season. After finishing just outside the top 25 runners at the 2005 World Cross Country Championships, she experimented with a switch to the

steeplechase SteepleChase Records is a jazz record company and label based in Copenhagen, Denmark. SteepleChase was founded in 1972 by Nils Winther, who was a student at Copenhagen University at the time. He began recording concerts at Jazzhus Montmartre, ...

. She finished in 13th place in the

3000 m steeplechase The 3000 metres steeplechase or 3000-meter steeplechase (usually abbreviated as ) is the most common distance for the steeplechase in track and field. It is an obstacle race over the distance of the 3000 metres, which derives its name from the h ...

at the

2005 World Championships in Athletics The 10th World Championships in Athletics (, ), under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), were held in the Olympic Stadium, Helsinki, Finland (6 August 2005 – 14 August 2005), the site of the first ...

. The next two years saw her career stall: after a poor 64th-place finish in the World Cross Country Championships she ran infrequently and only returned to competition in mid-2007.

Beijing Olympics and improving times

Monteiro showed much improvement in the 2008 season. She ran her fastest ever time at the World Cross Country Championships (27:12) and took fifth place at the

– her first competitive outing over the distance. She qualified to represent Portugal at the

2008 Beijing Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fro ...

but she did not manage to finish the Olympic marathon race. She closed the year on a positive note, however, winning the Ovar Half Marathon for a fourth time, and taking individual bronze and team gold at the

2008 European Cross Country Championships The 15th European Cross Country Championships were held at Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and langu ...

. She closed the season by beating Olympic silver medallist

Eunice Jepkorir Eunice Jepkorir Kertich (born 17 February 1982) is a Kenyan long-distance runner who specialises in the steeplechase (athletics), steeplechase. She was the 2008 Summer Olympics, 2008 Olympic silver medalist in the event and bronze medalist at t ...

to win the

Cross Internacional de Venta de Baños The Cross Internacional de Venta de Baños is a cross country running competition that takes place in Venta de Baños, Castile and León, Spain. The competition was first held in 1980 and since then it has been held every year in mid-December. Amon ...

. She became the national cross country champion in March 2009, but failed to finish at the World Championships in

Amman Amman ( , ; , ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of four million as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant ...

. She performed strongly at the European track events, winning the 10,000 m cup with a personal best and taking the 3000 m bronze medal in the European Team Championships.European Athlete of the Year nominations for 2009
.

European Athletics The European Athletic Association (EAA, more commonly known as European Athletics) is the governing body for Sport of athletics, athletics in Europe. It is one of the six Area Associations of the world's athletics governing body World Athletics. E ...

(2009). Retrieved on 2009-11-22. Prior to the World Athletics Championships she improved her 5000 m best at the

Bislett Games The Bislett Games is an annual track and field meeting at the Bislett Stadium in Oslo, Norway. Previously one of the IAAF Golden League events, it is now part of the Diamond League. History The first international athletics meeting at Bislett ...

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

. She finished in tenth place in the 10,000 metres final at the

2009 World Championships in Athletics The 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics () were held in Berlin, Germany from 15 to 23 August 2009. The majority of events took place in the Olympiastadion, while the marathon and racewalking events started and finished at the Brandenbu ...

. Her new personal best time of 31:25.67 was the best performance by a European in the race. Following the World Championships, she took to road competitions: she won the

Great South Run The Great South Run is an annual 10 mile (16.09 km) road running race which takes place in Portsmouth, United Kingdom providing an intermediate distance between the ten kilometre and the half marathon (21.097 km) runs. Launched in 199 ...

in a Portuguese 10-mile record time, and she took the Ovar Half Marathon title for a sixth time with a personal best of 1:10:06. At the start of the 2009–10 cross country season, she beat national champion Jessica Augusto to win the Oeiras International Cross Country for the first time, and took second behind

Linet Masai Linet Chepkwemoi Masai (born 5 December 1989) is a Kenyan professional long-distance runner who competes in track and cross country running events. She won her first world title in the 10,000 metres at the 2009 World Championships in Athletic ...

, the reigning 10,000 m World Champion, at the Cross Internacional de Soria the following week. In May 2010, Monteiro set a new personal best of 32:02 in the 10K road distance, coming third at the

Great Manchester Run The Great Manchester Run is an annual run through Greater Manchester (namely Manchester, Trafford and Salford). It has consisted of a 10k run since it was established in 2003, and a half marathon since 2017. The 10k race is the largest of its t ...

, and then set another best of 31:13.58 in June to retain her title at the

European Cup 10000m The European 10,000m Cup is an annual 10,000 metres race for European athletes which was first held in 1997. The competition is organised by the European Athletics Association and first began as the European 10000 Metres Challenge (''European 1 ...

, leading Portugal to a team victory.Ramsak, Bob (2010-06-06)
Farah and Monteiro take European Cup 10,000m victories

. Retrieved on 2010-06-06.

Personal bests

*All information taken from IAAF profile.

References

External links

* *Sports-reference profile fo
Inês Monteiro
{{DEFAULTSORT:Monteiro, Ines 1980 births Living people People from Guarda, Portugal Portuguese female middle-distance runners Portuguese female long-distance runners Portuguese female steeplechase runners Olympic athletes for Portugal Athletes (track and field) at the 2004 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2008 Summer Olympics Mediterranean Games silver medalists for Portugal Mediterranean Games medalists in athletics Athletes (track and field) at the 2018 Mediterranean Games Sportspeople from Guarda District 21st-century Portuguese sportswomen