Daniel Do Nascimento, Brazil’s Fastest Marathoner, Found Alive After 44 Days Missing

Daniel do Nascimento, the fastest marathon runner the Americas has ever produced, was found alive on Saturday in eastern São Paulo, 44 days after he walked out of his family’s home and vanished. The 28-year-old Brazilian, who has not competed since a doping ban ended his career in 2024, was recognized on a city street by a passerby, and by the time he disappeared anti-doping officials had already spent nearly two years struggling to reach him.

Do Nascimento was walking on Rua Dr. Ubaldino do Amaral, in the Belenzinho neighborhood, when a pedestrian recognized him and alerted the Metropolitan Civil Guard, the municipal police force, according to g1, the Brazilian outlet that first reported the discovery. Officers confirmed his identity and said he appeared to be in good physical condition. He was taken to a police station in the Tatuapé district, where his family went to meet him.

He had last been seen on June 19, leaving the home in Paraguaçu Paulista, a town in the interior of São Paulo state, carrying only a black backpack. His family reported him missing on July 27, and Brazil’s athletics federation appealed to the country’s running community for help, as Marathon Handbook reported last week.

In April 2022 he ran 2:04:51 at the Seoul Marathon, which remains the South American and Brazilian record. At the Olympic marathon in Sapporo in 2021 he had run near the front and traded a fist bump with Eliud Kipchoge before dropping out. In November 2022, at the New York City Marathon, he led alone for more than 20 miles, passing 10K in 28:42 and halfway in 1:01:22 in unusual heat, before collapsing with about five miles to run.

In July 2024 the Athletics Integrity Unit, which polices doping in track and field, banned him for five years. Two samples he gave while training in Rio de Janeiro in July 2023 contained the anabolic steroids metenolone and drostanolone, the unit said, with a third banned substance, nandrolone, in the first sample. The ban rules him out of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

It was not the last time officials struggled to account for him. In its written decision, the Athletics Integrity Unit described an athlete who had been hard to reach for close to two years. His manager sought deadline extensions in mid-2024, citing do Nascimento’s mental health, and filed a medical document the unit called largely illegible. By September 2024 the manager said he was unreachable. Late that November, anti-doping officials could reach him only through his wife, over WhatsApp. In February 2025, after months without a substantive response, the unit moved to charge him.

His mother, Valdirene Ferreira, has said her son struggled after his career ended and had been living under her care, going with her each day to her job at a cassava-processing plant. She told g1 that he had kept running on his own. “He would do some training sessions secretly in the middle of the sugarcane field,” she said, speaking in Portuguese. “I think he really missed the routine of an athlete.”

Officials released no account of where do Nascimento had been or why he left. His ban runs until July 2029.