Mariana Vidinha

Happy birthday to Portugal’s 800m runner and physiotherapy student Mariana Vidinha, who races for Juventude Vidigalense and is training to put people back together.

Mariana ran 2:11.95 for 800m at the Estádio Cidade de Coimbra last July and 57.46 for 400m at the Estádio Dr. Magalhães Pessoa in Leiria the same week — personal bests in both, three days apart. She also has a 3:52.22 4x400m to her name from Leiria. Her championship record runs through the Portuguese indoor circuit at Pombal: silver over 400m at the national Under-23 indoor championships, silver again at the national university championships, and a seventh place in the senior national indoor final, all in the same season.

That university silver is a nice detail, because it means she was racing for her school as well as her club. She studies fisioterapia at the Escola Superior de Saúde do Politécnico de Leiria, and there is an obvious logic to a middle-distance runner choosing physiotherapy — nobody understands what a body does under repeated load quite like someone who has asked their own to run two laps flat out.

Her club is JV, Juventude Vidigalense, in the Leiria district, and she comes from Nazaré on the Atlantic coast. The 800m is the event that catches out athletes who are only fast or only strong, because it demands both at once and then asks you to make a decision about when to commit while you can no longer think clearly. She has taken almost a second and a half off her best in a season while carrying a health-sciences degree. Both of those things are hard. Doing them together is harder.

Muitos parabéns, Mariana! Que tenhas muitas felicidades e muitos anos de vida — e uma salva de palmas para ti, que bem a mereces. Força! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇵🇹