Olympian marathoner, Daniel Nascimento wrote history as the best ever Brazilian and South American in the history of the marathon at the 76th edition of the Seoul Marathon that was held on Sunday (17) in Seoul, South Korea.
Nascimento who was participating in his fourth marathon destroyed a 24 year record of Ronaldo da Costa. The 51 year-old had broken the ten-year-old marathon world record in 1998 in Berlin. The record of 2:06.50 had been set by Belayneh Densamo from Ethiopia in 1988 at the Rotterdam Marathon.
Danielzinho had stayed away from the sport for a while and returned at the end of 2019 being the best Brazilian in São Silvestre that year. Then he made a bold move to marathon at the tender age 21 years. This move has finally paid off as he crushed the Brazilian record of 2:06.05 as well as lowering his personal best by more than a minute and setting a New Brazilian National Record with unofficial time of 2:04.49, just eight seconds behind the winner and new course record holder Mosinet Geremew from Ethiopia.
The former record holder who is now aged 51 years, broke the then world record that had already lasted 10 years. This mark was shattered in the following year by Khalid Khannouchi from Morocco who ran a world record time of 2:05.42 and since then the record breaking time was taken over by African Nations. Since then the record has been broken nine times.
Da Costa also became the first man to officially reach the 40km mark under two hours with a time of 1:59.55. His record remained for almost a quarter of a century as a Brazilian record, until today when Nascimento lowered it. Even great runners like Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima and Marilson Gomes dos Santos didn’t beat him
Six countries have, in history, better results than the Brazilian runner did in Seoul; Kenya, Ethiopia (each with more than 30 athletes in the top 70 of all time), Eritrea, Belgium, Turkey and Bahrain. These last three, however, have naturalized African record holders.
Nascimento not only surpasses this historic record but also puts Brazil back among the main countries in the marathon.
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