Carlos Fernandes Esteves de Almeida (also Carlos Almeida, born 4 August 1988) is a Portuguese swimmer, who specializes in breaststroke events.[1][2] He is a two-time Olympian, an NCAA Champion, a 2011 Big East Conference champion, and a current Portuguese record holder in the 50, 100 and 200 m breaststroke in the long and short course.[3][4] Almeida is a resident athlete for Amadora Swimming Club in Lisbon (Portuguese: Clube de Natação da Amadora), and is coached and trained by Filipe Coelho.[1]
Almeida made his official debut at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where he competed in the men's 200 m breaststroke. He cleared a FINA B-cut of 2:15.00 from the Dutch Open in Eindhoven, Netherlands.[5][6] Almeida blasted a 2:15 barrier and a new Portuguese record of 2:13.34 to top the second heat, but he finished only in thirty-second overall from the preliminaries.[7]
At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Almeida qualified for the men's 100 m breaststroke by establishing a Portuguese record and achieving a FINA B-standard entry time of 1:01.19 from the European Championships in Debrecen, Hungary.[8][9] He challenged seven other swimmers on the third heat, including fellow two-time Olympian Martin Liivamägi of Estonia. He raced to third place by two tenths of a second (0.20) behind Greece's Panagiotis Samilidis in 1:01.40. Almeida failed to advance into the semifinals, as he placed twenty-fifth overall out of 44 swimmers on the first day of preliminaries.[10]
Almeida was a member of the swimming team for the Louisville Cardinals, with a sports administration major at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky. Almeida also became the first swimmer in school's history to claim a title at the NCAA Division I Championships in Federal Way, Washington. He blasted a time of 1:51.88 in the 200 breast stroke to match former Olympic silver medalist Ed Moses for the fourth-fastest all time in collegiate history.[11][12]
