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Maurren Maggi, a Brazilian athlete from the BM&FBOVESPA Athletics Club, won a gold medal in the long jump today, August 22, and became Brazil’s first women’s track-and-field athlete to win an individual gold medal in the Olympic Games. With a leap of 7.04m on her first jump, Maurren surpassed Russia’s Tatyana Lebedeva who won silver with a jump of 7.03m. Blessing Okagbare from Nigeria took home the bronze medal, with a mark of 6.91m.
With this achievement Maurren´s coach Nélio Alfano Moura who is also a member of the BM&FBOVESPA Athletics Club has now become one of the most important long jump coaches in the history of track-and-field. In Beijing, he helped two of his athletes to win Olympic gold: Maurren Maggi (Brazil) and Irwin Saladino (Panama).
Founded in 2002, the BM&FBOVESPA Athletics Club currently consists of 93 athletes, 11 coaches, 2 assistant coaches, 2 medical doctors, 1 nutritionist, 5 physiotherapists and 1 masseur.
Profile
Name: Maurren Higa Maggi
Date of Birth: June/25/1976
Competition: Long jump
Best mark: 7.26m in the Bogotá South-American Games (1999)
Club: BM&FBOVESPA Athletics Club
Maurren Higa Maggi was born in the city of São Carlos on June 25, 1976. Encouraged by her parents she took up artistic gymnastics as a child. However, due to her above-average height, Maurren decided to leave gymnastics and focus on track-and-field. In 1993 she joined the Ribeirão Preto Athletics Friends Association (AAARP), and a year later she was invited by her current coach, Nélio Moura, to participate in the Future Project in the city of São Paulo. Her personal best performance in the long jump came when she was 23 years old when she won first place in the Bogotá South-American Games (Colombia) in 1999 by setting the current South-American record with a jump of 7.26m.
From among Maureen’s main achievements, the highlights are as follows: a gold medal (long jump) and a silver medal (110m hurdles) in the Winnipeg Pan-American Games (1999); a bronze medal in the Birmingham World Indoor Games (2003); a gold medal in the Rio de Janeiro Pan-American Games (2007); and a silver medal in the Valencia World Indoor Games (2008). According to Maurren, the BM&FBOVESPA Athletics Club has played a crucial role in her career. “The BM&FBOVESPA Athletics Club has always been present, providing the conditions that allowed me to improve as an athlete and to achieve excellent results around the world.”
