Marcos Cassange Santos (born 15 January 2004) is an Angolan sprinter. As a junior, he set the junior national record in the men's

200 metres The 200 metres, or 200-meter dash, is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400-metre racetrack, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques is needed to successfully run the race. A slight ...

and competed at the

2022 World Athletics Championships The 2022 World Athletics Championships was the eighteenth edition of the World Athletics Championships. It was held at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, United States, from July 15–24, 2022, with the country hosting that competition for the ...

though was disqualified in the heats. He also competed at the 2023 African U20 Championships in Athletics and the

2023 World Athletics Championships The 2023 World Athletics Championships (), the nineteenth edition of the World Athletics Championships, were held from 19 to 27 August 2023 at the National Athletics Centre (Budapest), National Athletics Centre, in Budapest, Hungary. The tourna ...

, setting a national record at the latter. He trained in Brazil for the

2023 African Games The 13th African Games, also known as Accra 2023, were hosted by Ghana from 8–23 March 2024. Despite having Accra as the main host city, the games were held in two sub-host cities: Kumasi and Cape Coast. The games were initially planned to be ...

and

2024 Summer Olympics The 2024 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad () and branded as Paris 2024, were an international multi-sport event held in France from 26 July to 11 August 2024, with several events started from 24 July. P ...

. For the latter, he ran in the men's 200 metres and broke the national record in the heats. At the 2024 Summer Games, he became the first Angolan athletics competitor to qualify for a round past the preliminaries after he ran in a national-record setting time of 10.31 seconds.

Biography

Marcos Cassange Santos was born on 15 January 2004 in

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

. His athletics club is Petro de Luanda, with his personal coach being Santana João dos Santos. He studied with a major in telecommunications. As a junior, he set the junior national record in the men's 200 metres at a time of 22.12 seconds and trained at the

Estádio dos Coqueiros Estádio dos Coqueiros is a multi-use stadium in Luanda, Angola. It is currently used mostly for football (soccer), football matches and is the home ground of S.L. Benfica (Luanda), Benfica de Luanda and Kabuscorp S.C.P., Kabuscorp. The stadium ...

Luanda Luanda ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Angola, largest city of Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, Luanda is Ang ...

. At the

Eugene, Oregon Eugene ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lane County, Oregon, United States. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie River (Oregon), McKenzie and Willamette River, Willamette rivers, ...

, United States, he competed in the men's 200 metres though was disqualified in his heat after he had crossed into another lane. Santos competed at the 2023 African U20 Championships in Athletics in

Ndola Ndola is the third largest city in Zambia in terms of size and population, with a population of 627,503 (''2022 census''), after the capital, Lusaka, and Kitwe, and the second largest in terms of infrastructure development after Lusaka. It is the I ...

, Zambia, in the men's U20 100 and 200 metres. In the former, he ran in a time of 10.59 seconds in the heats and qualified for the semifinals. He ran in a time of 10.62 in the semifinals, not qualifying him for the finals. In the 200 metres, he ran in a time of 21.23 seconds in the preliminaries and advanced to the semifinals. He ran in a time of 21.33 seconds in his semifinal, placing him second for his round and advanced to the finals. During the finals, he placed fifth overall with a time of 21.52 seconds. He also competed at the

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

, Hungary. He competed in the men's 200 metres and set a national record with a time of 21.05 seconds, breaking the previous national record held by Afonso Ferraz set in 1992. In his preparations for the

and

, he was coached by Jaime Neto at a training camp in Brazil. For the 2023 African Games, he competed at the men's 200 metres. He ran a time of 20.96 in the preliminaries, setting a new national record. He was eliminated in the semi-finals after he ran in a time of 21.26 seconds. He then qualified for the 2024 Summer Olympics through a

universality slot Universality slots or universality places are used by the International Olympic Committee to increase diversity of participating nations across the sports programme of the Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world' ...

, which allows underrepresented nations to compete and for

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(NOC) to send athletes despite not meeting the standard qualification criteria. At the preliminaries of the men's 100 metres at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Santos ran in a time of 10.31 seconds to break the national record and advance further. He would be the first Angolan athletics competitor to advance to a further round at an Olympic Games. In his next round, he ran in a time of 10.40 seconds and did not advance further. He became the national champion in the 100 metres in 2024 after the games.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Santos, Marcos 2004 births Living people Angolan male sprinters Athletes (track and field) at the 2024 Summer Olympics Olympic athletes for Angola 21st-century Angolan sportsmen