Vanessa Fernandes
Vanessa de Sousa Fernandes (born September 14, 1985) is a Portuguese athlete from Perosinho, Vila Nova de Gaia and a former triathlon European and World champion. She won the European Triathlon Championships five consecutive years (5 elite and 3 under-23 titles), beginning in 2004, and on September 1, 2007, she became World champion for the first time, in Hamburg, Germany, managing to grab the only title (apart from the Olympic sceptre) missing from her career.
In 1999, Fernandes was introduced to triathlon by her father Venceslau Fernandes, a former professional cyclist and winner of the 1984 Volta a Portugal. She competed for her local triathlon club and then for Belenenses where she became world champion of under-23. Later in 2005, Vanessa joined Sport Lisboa e Benfica and represents the club to this day. Occasionally, Fernandes enters cross country events. Fernandes competed at the Olympic Games for the first time in 2004. On the second Olympic triathlon competition, at age eighteen, she finished in eighth place with a total time of 2:06:15.39.
In June 2006, she won the International Triathlon Union World Cup, ranking number one in the world. In September, she equaled Australian Emma Carney's record number of consecutive wins in the World Cup, with a twelfth victory at the Beijing leg. Later that year, Fernandes was awarded with the "Best Female Athlete of the Year" prize from CNID (Clube Nacional de Imprensa Desportiva; English: Sports Press National Club) at its annual sports gala. In 2008, she won her 5th-in-a-row Elite European Championships title, at home in Lisbon.
In August 2008, she finished second in the Beijing Olympic Games, winning the first olympic medal in her career.
Read more about Vanessa Fernandes: Achievements
Famous quotes containing the word vanessa:
“Vanessa wanted to be a ballerina. Dad had such hopes for her.... Corin was the academically brilliant one, and a fencer of Olympic standard. Everything was expected of them, and they fulfilled all expectations. But I was the one of whom nothing was expected. I remember a game the three of us played. Vanessa was the President of the United States, Corin was the British Prime Minister—and I was the royal dog.”
—Lynn Redgrave (b. 1943)