Opinion – Finish Line: Who is Daniel Nascimento, 2nd place at São Silvestre and promise of the Brazilian marathon

In a race dominated by Africans, a Brazilian got his place in the São Silvestre Race this Friday (31). Daniel Nascimento, 23, took second place and, once again, was the best placed Brazilian in the dispute, only behind Ethiopian Belay Bezabh, champion in 2018.

Daniel was in the front for the entire race, even leading at times. On the way up Avenida Brigadeiro Luís Antônio, the African opened up an advantage, but the Brazilian kept the pace, guaranteeing second place.

São Silvestre was the most recent event in a career that has shown that not only Africans, especially Kenyans and Ethiopians, dominate long-distance events, such as the marathon. Among so many athletes from these countries, Daniel has conquered his place in the front pack.

The athlete is young in age and in the marathon. To date, he has run “only” three 42.195 km races in his life: in Lima, Sapporo and Valencia. The first was his debut in the sport, which guaranteed him a trip to Japan, as one of the three Brazilian representatives at the Tokyo Olympics. The second was precisely the Olympic. The third put him in the spotlight.

In the Spanish race, he conquered the second best South American time in marathons, being 6 seconds behind Ronaldo da Costa’s mark, reached in Berlin, in 1998. In Valencia, Daniel finished the race in 2h06min11sec.

While Ronaldo conquered time in the German capital, Daniel was about to complete two months of life. Born in Paraguaçu Paulista (SP), he started in sport like many Brazilians: in football.

“I used to run there a lot, a lot here, and the coach told me I was going to stand out much more in athletics”, tells Daniel to leaf. At the age of 13, he then started his career. At 15, he took the gold medal in the 3,000 meters at the South American Youth Games, in Lima.

With the result, he went to Campinas, to train at the Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima Institute, where Daniel says he has evolved a lot. “He [o treinador Alex Lopes] he worked with me thinking about the future, which was this moment of the marathon,” he explains. “At the time, I had taken some exams at the Brazilian Olympic Committee, and they told me I would be very good when I got to the marathon.”

Before moving on to the famous 42.195 km, however, Daniel had to overcome some obstacles. In 2018, after years of shining in competitions from 1,500 meters to 10,000 meters, including different disciplines, he reached his first São Silvestre.

The 15 km through the streets of São Paulo, however, were not completed. He had an Achilles tendon injury and thought his career would end there. “I went back to the countryside. I decided I was going to quit the sport.”

For six months, he worked in the cassava field. I woke up at 4am and worked until 6pm. Until his mother, Valdirene Ferreira, intervened. “He had a very big relapse, I didn’t think he would get over it”, she says, now 41 years old. “But we, as a mother, seeing such a great talent that he had developed, said that he had to seek the best for life.”

On his return, he arrived at the Bauru Association of Water Sports, in the interior of São Paulo. A little overweight —for a professional runner—, he resumed training and, in August, won fourth place in the 10,000 meters of the 2019 Brazil Trophy.

In December, he was back in São Silvestre. This time, with the 15 km completed, he conquered the tenth position, which raised him to the best positioned Brazilian of that year. The career caught the attention of Gabriel Carvalho, a partner at Blu Logistics and racing enthusiast, who decided to support the athlete.

“Daniel was at a time when he needed support, it was a revelation since he was young, a diamond to be cut.” Potential that was observed by Adidas and Strava, now supporters of the athlete. In early 2020, after winning the São Paulo Half Marathon in February, before the races were suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Carvalho asked if Daniel didn’t want to go to Kenya, train where the marathon stars are.

It was his dream. Although evidence was scarce in 2020, the Brazilian continued his training among Kenyans. With the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics to 2021, in May of this year he was preparing to conquer the Olympic index of 10,000 meters. But his head was already in the long dreamed 42.195 km.

Two weeks before the test in Lima, he found a coach who was up to the challenge. “He told me: ‘What you’re trying to do is impossible, but it’s the impossible that we like,'” recalls Daniel.

On May 23, he not only won the Olympic index for the sport in his debut event, he also won the Peruvian Bicentennial Marathon. On August 8, I was in Sapporo for the Olympics.

The competition, marked by strong heat and humidity, punished the athletes, including Daniel Nascimento. He was doing well in the race, at the front, but his inexperience took its toll. At the first hydration stations, the Brazilian was unable to get water and his individual bottle because he was in the middle of the pack.

At kilometer 15, he was next to the greatest marathon runner today, Eliud Kipchoge, exchanging smiles and punches. At kilometer 20, he managed to get his first hydration. At a strong pace, without replacing enough what he was using, Daniel’s body ran out at around kilometer 25.

“That deep blink came and there I already felt a shock”, he recalls. “It erased everything, my mind went dark and I remember hitting my head on the railing. I kept shaking it to see if it would come back a bit.”

Still, he tried to continue the race. He had to get his bearings to know which way to run, got up and went. The vision was blurry and Daniel tapped his head to try to see. “I just remember putting my hand and lying down, I think in the middle of the street, because it was warm there.”

The Brazilian left the ambulance test. He arrived with low blood pressure and severe hypoglycemia. “I think I just didn’t die for the mercy of God,” says Daniel, in a statement that shows his connection to the religion — phrases from the Bible appear as captions for his publications on social networks. Upon waking up, a member of the staff who attended to him said that they were already thinking of resuscitating him. Daniel says, laughing, that his body was asking for a cold soda.

The smile, by the way, is his trademark. Whether on the Sapporo race or talking about the tough times, Daniel keeps his face light and the manner of a kid who already knows he was born to shine. Since he was little, Dona Valdirene tells that he said he would become an Olympic athlete. In Japan, he has already started to trace this path and, even with the setback, he kept his focus and conquered the mark in Valencia.

For this, it follows a regulated training routine, which starts between 5:00 and 6:00, when, along with a group of athletes who run around the same time, they go out to train. On the way back, breakfast and sleep. Then comes lunch and a moment of relaxation in the afternoon. At night, sleep early to start over for the next day.

Discipline has been his mark since he was a child. His mother remembers that he was always a studious boy, coming home from school, doing his homework and already running to the night training.

And for the races of the future, Daniel is thinking of participating in his first major –circuit of the six main marathons in the world– next year in London, to break the South American mark. In 2024, at the Paris Olympics, he intends to arrive more prepared to, who knows, bring a medal to Brazil.

The dispute promises, as Kipchoge has already said he wants to seek the Olympic trio. Dona Valdirene, however, has no doubts about her son’s success. “I believe my boy will bring great pride to Brazil.”