‘I fell to the side, I don’t remember anything’

“I don’t remember anything,” said the Portuguese athlete.

Portuguese Sarah Moreira fainted during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics marathon, after she covered 21 kilometers, the athlete explained, after receiving medical assistance while in the building, in Sapporo.

“I don’t know what happened. I remember running the half marathon, because I stopped about 18 kilometers to go to the bathroom, but then I started running and fell to the side, I don’t remember anything,” said the athlete, from Santo Tirso to the Lusa Agency.

In the mixed zone, Sarah Moreira was supported by a national staff member, after the course was left in a wheelchair, lifeless, according to Lusa’s on-site results, at a time of 30°C.

The 35-year-old marathon runner, who at that time was in the 75th position, said 03.27 minutes of the group .. 12 athletes led the race.

Sarah Moreira finished her fourth Olympic appearance in the face of physical difficulties, having given up at the 2016 Rio Marathon, having finished 14th in the 10,000m in London 2012 and 22nd in the 3,000m hurdles in Beijing 2008.

The sportswoman was the European Half Marathon Champion, in 2016, and 3rd and 4th in the New York Marathon, in 2014 and 2015 respectively, having secured her presence in Tokyo 2020 with a record of 02:26.42 hours, at Twente. , The Netherlands, on April 18, 2021.

The competition – whose start was expected at 06:00 local time (22:00 in Lisbon), due to the intense heat forecast – is still Portugal’s Carla Salome Rocha, for the first time in the marathon, having finished 26th in the 10,000m in Rio 2016, and newcomer Sarah Catarina Ribeiro.