Vanessa Fernandes

Who is Vanessa Fernandes?

Vanessa de Sousa Fernandes is a Portuguese athlete from Perosinho, Vila Nova de Gaia and a former triathlon European and World champion. She won the European Triathlon Championships five consecutive years, beginning in 2004, and on September 1, 2007, she became World champion for the first time, in Hamburg, Germany, managing to grab the only title missing from her career.

In 1999, Fernandes was introduced to triathlon by her father Venceslau Fernandes, a former professional cyclist and winner of the 1984 Volta a Portugal. She competed for her local triathlon club and then for Belenenses where she became world champion of under-23. Later in 2005, Vanessa joined Sport Lisboa e Benfica and represents the club to this day. Occasionally, Fernandes enters cross country events. Fernandes competed at the Olympic Games for the first time in 2004. On the second Olympic triathlon competition, at age eighteen, she finished in eighth place with a total time of 2:06:15.39.

In June 2006, she won the International Triathlon Union World Cup, ranking number one in the world. In September, she equaled Australian Emma Carney's record number of consecutive wins in the World Cup, with a twelfth victory at the Beijing leg. Later that year, Fernandes was awarded with the "Best Female Athlete of the Year" prize from CNID at its annual sports gala. In 2008, she won her 5th-in-a-row Elite European Championships title, at home in Lisbon.