What happened to Portuguese running?

Football (soccer) gets most of the talent, especially among boys.

Road races used to have great prize money but nowadays there is very little.

Outside the top 3 teams in the country, athletes get around €200/month. Most end up quitting to focus on their jobs and families.

Even in the top 3 teams in the country, most runners get the equivalent to minimum wages. That's no real incentive to train like a pro.

Modern comfort. Most of the stars from the past came from very poor backgrounds. Running was a poor person's sport. There are too many other opportunities and distractions for kids nowadays.

That’s too bad, always love seeing small countries do well and have a tradition.

I know they have had several kids come over to the us but it isn’t a pipeline like some other countries.

All they need is for a few stars to stand out again and get the popularity back.

Thanks for this and it's a subject I'm interested in. Is it as simple as this? The decline has been very steep. They were part of the Trofeo Iberico which evolved the Euro 10000m challenge and now they seem to not even do their annual 10000m race vs Spain. Or if they do, the result is very one sided. Although noone was ever caught I think at least part of the previous success, for a few, was EPO usage, and I note the Portuguese decline became much steeper from c 2000/1 when EPO tests started

there used to be some professional teams sponsored by either clubs (like Sporting clube de Portugal), brands (Adidas) or companies (gruppo Conforlimpa). I thinks those dissolved or got budget cuts.

Those teams made big honour of competing in the National and European club competitions. I think funding has got less and so the level of competition got less.

Some people suspected Antonio Pinto.

Didn"t the Portuguese runners also work with running? Carlos Lopes was a loan officer at a bank if I recall. So they can't have been making that much money from running. Probably what has changed is the culture and stigma around running in Portugal.

This club race had Sporting with Lopes and Mamede up against the Italian club Milan with Cova and Panetta. Stephen Jones was also in the race too.

Cova got jeered at the end.

Probably. You know which countries are the dirty ones when their results went up during the EPO era, and declined when EPO tests and then the ABP came in. And you know which countries are the cleaner ones when they always had a tradition of distance running, they declined during the EPO era and no testing in EA, and now are getting stronger again.

The Spanish haven't declined so much, and are even getting stronger again, because evidently their sports bodies and legal system are corrupt as hell (as evidenced by the operacion puerto fiasco).

Certainly Spanish are all dirty, unlike the pristine Americans...

U! S! A! U! S! A!

Remember the early 2010s with the likes of Ana Dulce Felix, Jessica Augusto, and Sara Moreira having strong long distance performances. It’s a shame their younger development has ceased

Though operacion Puerto started 2006, one year before Andy Norman, who managed some UK athletes until his end, died, so at some point history doesn't necessarily give evidence for the present.

Europe's doping pipeline from Africa has to run through Spain and France, but it doesn't have to run through Portugal.

I have no idea why anyone would down vote this. It is well documented the number of EPO bust of Portuguese’s top cycling team. Sports do not happen in a bubble.

The decline in Portuguese running was already happening when Antonio Pinto and Fernanda Ribeiro were top runners thanks to EPO.

The main reason for it is that football development structures started to get more and more professional and casting a wide net all over the country.

Basically the best athletes in Portugal end up in football the same way the best athletes in the US end up in American football. This started in the late 90s and early 2000s.

portugal 1976 to 2000x was in the blood doping era per Viren protocol, when at first it wasn't illegal.

moving forward, portugese obviously got off the full meal deal ped bandwagon, when EPO came in and declined the Katir protocol. which is the Iberian/Atlas Mtn. protocol, which spread to the Rift valley.

Now South Africa, Botswana especially and Ethopia will have epic quantities of busts.

Once Jamaica actually has some semblance of drug testing their program went the way of the dinosaur.

Meanwhile, USA burries busts, in a too big to fail scheme.

beautiful.

Mamede is a favorite, a converted 400m sprinter (competed in the OG) to 10k.

With fast twitch he was useless after heats, with no sting left,

But in a one off, and with the WR he was a revolutionary type athlete, something which escapes the media's attention, then again, the media has negative IQ for track.

as seen in EVERY NBC broadcast.

if track guys handled the super bowl, they would not cut to commercial in the final drive to decide the game.....