Career
He represented Portugal at the 2004 Summer Olympics. He is a two-time silver medallist at the Ibero-American Championships in Athletics and participated in the IAAF World Cross Country Championships on ten occasions from 1997 to 2011. Born in Beja, he started out as a middle-distance runner and ran in the 1500 metres at the 1995 European Youth Olympic Festival and the 1997 European Athletics Junior Championships.
He made his junior international debut in cross country running in 1997, ranking 75th in the World Cross Championships and 16th at the European Cross Championships.
He and de Souza repeated their placings at the 2002 Ibero-American Championships in Athletics. He appeared three more times in the World Cross Country short race in 2004–2006, but did not feature in the top forty.
At the 2004 Athens Olympics he reached the semi-finals and was the fastest runner not to reach the 1500 metres final. His first appearance at the European Athletics Championships came in 2006 and he was a semi-finalist.
Following the abolition of the short race from the cross country championships, he began to focus on longer distances on grass.
He was a regular pick for Portuguese team for the IAAF World Cross Country Championships from 2007 to 2012, with his best performance being 47th place in 2011. He began taking part in road races around 2011 and set a half marathon best of 65:26 minutes at the Portugal Half Marathon that year. He had back-to-back wins at the São Silvestre de Lisboa in 2011 and 2012.
800 metres – 1:48.73 minimum (2005)
1500 metres – 3:34.37 minimum (2004)
Mile run – 4:01.58 minimum (1999)
3000 metres – 7:55.93 minimum (2003)
5000 metres – 13:36.66 minimum (2009)
Half marathon – 63:07 minimum (2008)
All information from IAAF profile.
