Teresa Portela
- Country
- Portugal
- National team
- Portugal Canoe Sprint
- Born
- 1987
Teresa Portela is the grande dame of Portuguese kayaking — a world champion and five-time Olympian from Esposende, born on 30 October 1987, who races for S.L. Benfica. She is not to be confused with her Spanish namesake: this Teresa Portela has built her own, distinctly Portuguese story across nearly two decades at the top. The crowning moment came in Samarkand in 2024, when she and Messias Baptista won the mixed K2 500 world title — Portugal's first world crown in the event, two years after the pair had taken silver at the 2022 worlds. Her honours list also includes K4 200 world bronze from 2009, European Championship gold in the K2 200 in 2018 and European Games gold in the mixed K2 200 in Kraków in 2023. Few careers in the sport stretch as far. Portela made her Olympic debut in Beijing in 2008 in the K1 500 and has been selected for every Games since: London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, where she raced the K2 500 at her fifth Olympics — a longevity record matched by very few kayakers of her era. She has kept racing deep into the new cycle. The 2026 season has brought 18 international starts in the K2 and K4 across the European Championships and the World Cup circuit, with the World Championships in Poznań (26–30 August) on the season calendar and Los Angeles 2028 qualification running through the world rankings.