Carlos Lopes, Date of Birth, Place of Birth

Carlos Lopes

Olympic runner

Date of Birth: 18-Feb-1947

Place of Birth: Vildemoinhos, Viseu District, Portugal

Profession: long-distance runner, athletics competitor, marathon runner

Nationality: Portugal

Zodiac Sign: Aquarius

Carlos Alberto de Sousa Lopes, GCIH (Portuguese pronunciation: ['ka?lu? 'l?p??], born 18 February 1947) is a Portuguese former long-distance runner, winner of the marathon race at the 1984 Summer Olympics, in Los Angeles at the age of 37.
He brought home Portugal's first ever Olympic gold medal along with a new Olympic record – 2:09.21.
At the age of 38, in the 1985 Rotterdam marathon, Lopes took 53 seconds off the world's best marathon time, setting a new standard of 2:07.12, and becoming the first man to run 42.195 km in less than 2 h 8 min. Born in Vildemoinhos, near Viseu, Portugal, Carlos Lopes worked as a stonecutter's helper.
He wanted to play football at the local club, but his father opposed this, so he turned to other forms of athletics.
In 1967 he was personally invited to join the athletics team of Sporting Clube de Portugal, and remained there until the end of his career in 1985.
He was an average quality runner, until he made an astonishing breakthrough in 1976, aged 29.