César Augusto Cielo Filho (, born 10 January 1987) is a Brazilian former competitive swimmer who specialized in sprint events. He is the most successful Brazilian swimmer in history, having obtained three Olympic medals, winning six individual World Championship gold medals and breaking two world records.
Cielo is a former world record holder in the 50-metre freestyle and 100-metre freestyle events (both long course). He received induction into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in September 2023. César Cielo is the third Brazilian to enter the International Swimming Hall of Fame, after Maria Lenk and Gustavo Borges.
His gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics, in the 50-metre freestyle competition, is Brazil's only Olympic gold in swimming to date. In 2008, he broke the NCAA record in the freestyle (18.47 seconds) and in the freestyle (40.92 seconds). Cielo became the fastest swimmer in the world in the two distances, and was named NCAA Swimmer of the Year for the second year in a row.
Early life César Cielo was born in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, São Paulo, Brazil. The son of pediatrician César Cielo and physical education teacher Flávia Cielo, Cielo began his athletic career at small swimming clubs in his native state. As a young teenager, Cielo trained under coach Mario Francisco Sobrinho at the Esporte Clube Barbarense, where his mother taught swimming. When he was 13, Cielo started training in Piracicaba at the Clube de Campo de Piracicaba under coach Reinaldo Rosa. At 16 years old, he transferred to Esporte Clube Pinheiros in São Paulo to train under coach Alberto Silva and Brazilian swimming legend Gustavo Borges. As a gift while at Esporte Clube Pinheiros, he received the swimsuit used by Borges in Athens 2004.
Cielo was a childhood friend of André Schultz. When Cielo was a child, his father formed a group to organize and encourage swimming at Esporte Clube Barbarense. Werner Schultz, André Schultz's father, also belonged to the group. They began to create competitions and take the boys on trips. At one point, there were 500 people practicing swimming at the club, in a city, which almost 20 years later, has less than 200,000 inhabitants. Werner Schultz constructed a swimming pool with two Olympic lanes in the courtyard of his house, where Cielo used to train. Since childhood, Cielo could not bear to lose. Maria Schultz, mother of André Schultz, said, "He could not bear to lose. Several American coaches say this: that good swimmers like to win, and exceptional not afford to lose. Such is the case of Cesão." Cielo was so eager for victory that during the 1996 Summer Olympics, at nine years old, he was already studying his main reference, Russian Alexander Popov, through videos, noting details like his starts (block outputs) and turnarounds.
Cielo started competing in backstroke. In the region at the time, Guilherme Guido stood out as the opponent to beat. Guido defeated Cielo repeatedly in freestyle, while Cielo won the backstroke events. However, at a certain point, Guido began to lose to freestyle opponents, and began competing in backstroke events. He defeated Cielo, who then decided not swim backstroke anymore. At age 15, Cielo attended a series of trainings in Florida, USA, and returned home, willing to defeat Guido. When Cielo and Guido were reunited in a 100m freestyle contest, Guido fell behind and lost. From then on, Guido focused on backstroke, reversing positions with Cielo.
Collegiate career In 2005, Cielo received a scholarship from Auburn University in the United States. He studied international trade with a specialization in Spanish. While there, Cielo competed for the eight-time NCAA National Champion Auburn Tigers swimming and diving team. At Auburn, he was trained by Brett Hawke, an Australian Olympic finalist swimmer in Athens. Hawke helped Cielo with his last months of preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Cielo was also tutored by short-distance specialist Fernando Scherer in 2008. At Auburn, Cielo's scholarship contract was very strict, prohibiting him from drinking alcohol or taking girlfriends on a night out.
Cielo held the NCAA and U.S. Open record for the freestyle, set at the 2008 NCAA Division 1 Swimming and Diving Championships. At Auburn, Cielo won six National Championship events, including sweeping the 50 and 100 freestyle championships in 2007. Cielo gave up his fourth and final year of NCAA eligibility to become a professional swimmer.
International career
2004 Short Course Swimming Championships Cielo participated in his first major international tournament, the 2004 FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m), in the city of Indianapolis, in October 2004. At the age of 17, he won the silver medal in the 4×100-metre freestyle event. On a team with Guilherme Guido, Kaio Almeida and Eduardo Fischer, he finished 4th in the 4×100-metre medley, breaking the South American record with a time of 3:33.02. He also finished 6th in the 100-metre freestyle, 10th in the 50-metre freestyle, and 19th in the 50-metre backstroke.
2006–2007 Cielo competed in the 2006 FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m) in Shanghai, where he finished 5th in the 100-metre freestyle (only 17 hundredths of a second away from winning a medal) and in the 4×100-metre freestyle events. He also competed in the 4×200-metre freestyle, where he broke the South American record with a time of 7:06:09, along with Rodrigo Castro, Thiago Pereira and Lucas Salatta. In December, he began to stand out on the national scene, by breaking the South American record of Fernando Scherer in the 100-metre freestyle (48.69 seconds) which had stood since 1998. Cielo's time was 48.61 seconds, beating the record by 0.08 seconds. At that moment, Cielo's was the fourth fastest time in the 2006 world ranking.
Afterward, Cielo went to the 2006 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, where he finished 6th in the 50-metre freestyle, 7th in the 100-metre freestyle, 7th in the 4×100-metre medley, and was disqualified at the 4×100-metre freestyle.
Cielo was a finalist in the 2007 World Aquatics Championships in Melbourne, in the 100-metre freestyle (4th place, only 4 hundredths behind Eamon Sullivan, the bronze medalist, and 8 hundredths behind gold medalists Filippo Magnini and Brent Hayden), 50-metre freestyle (6th) and 4×100-metre freestyle (8th). He also took 9th place in the 4×100-metre medley. At that time, Cielo had established himself as the fastest Brazilian sprinter, by breaking the Fernando Scherer's South American record in the 50-metre freestyle. In that event's semifinal, Cielo swam for 22.09 seconds, improving on Fernando Scherer's time, from in August 1998, by nine hundredths of a second. He also broke his South American record in the 100-metre freestyle, with a time of 48.51 seconds, and the South American record of the 4×100-metre freestyle, with a time of 3:17.03, on a team with Thiago Pereira, Nicolas Oliveira and Rodrigo Castro.
At the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Cielo won three gold medals in the 50-metre, 100-metre, and 4×100-metre freestyle events, and a silver medal in the 4×100-metre medley. In the 50-metre freestyle, he won the event with a time of 21.84 seconds, beating the Pan American Games record, and becoming the first swimmer from South America to swim it in under 22 seconds. Cielo began to get close to the world record in the 50-metre freestyle, a time of 21.64 seconds, which at the time belonged to legendary swimmer Alexander Popov. He also broke the Pan Am Games and South American record in the 4×100-metre freestyle, with a time of 3:15.90, along with Fernando Silva, Eduardo Deboni and Nicolas Oliveira. In the 100-metre freestyle, he broke the Pan Am Games record with his time of 48.79 seconds, and in the 4×100-metre medley, he broke the South American record with a time of 3:35.81, along with Thiago Pereira, Henrique Barbosa and Kaio Almeida.
In November 2007, at the Italy Grand Prix, Cielo broke the short-course South American record for the 100-metre freestyle, with a time of 47.00 seconds.
2008 In February 2008, at the Missouri Grand Prix, Cielo improved his South American record in the 100-metre freestyle, with a time of 48.49 seconds. In April, at the Ohio Grand Prix, he broke the record again, with a time of 48.34 seconds, also defeating Michael Phelps.
A month before the Olympics, in July 2008, he broke his South American record in the 50-metre freestyle, with a time of 21.75 seconds.
Afterward, Cielo went to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where he broke the Americas record in the 4×100-metre freestyle heats, with a time of 47.91 seconds. Although the Brazilian team was disqualified, Cielo's record was allowed to stand. In the 100-metre freestyle, Cielo qualified for the final, taking eighth place in the heats, with a time of 48.07 seconds. Cielo excelled in the early part of the first semifinal, making his turn in second place, at 22.62 seconds, but finishing fifth. In the final, Cielo adopted a different tactic, turning third, slower (22.74 seconds) than in the semifinals, and saving energy for the finish, which resulted in his winning the bronze medal and breaking the South American record with a time of 47.67 seconds (tied with American swimmer Jason Lezak). Alain Bernard won the gold medal and Eamon Sullivan won the silver. Shortly after winning the bronze medal, Cielo gave a statement to the Brazilian press, stating categorically: "Now I'm going to win the 50m". In the 50-metre freestyle event, Cielo set the Olympic record, that Alexander Popov had set in the 1992 Summer Olympics, during the heats (21.47 seconds, equaling Garrett Weber-Gale's Americas record) and in the semifinals (21.34 seconds). He lowered this further in the finals, again breaking the Olympic record with a time of 21.30 seconds, winning the gold medal and missing the world record by 0.02 seconds. With this, he became the first Brazilian Olympic swimming champion. Until Cielo's Olympic gold, the best Brazilian Olympic swimming result had been obtained by Ricardo Prado, who won the silver medal in the 400-metre individual medley at the 1984 Summer Olympics, and previously Gustavo Borges, who won the silver medal in the 100-metre freestyle at the 1992 Summer Olympics and in the 200-metre freestyle at the 1996 Summer Olympics.
After the Olympics, in October, in the first stage of the 2008 FINA Swimming World Cup, held in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Cielo equaled the short-course South American record in the 50-metre freestyle, with a time of 21.32 seconds.
2009 Cielo trained at the Esporte Clube Pinheiros until 2009. He worked with Coach Albertinho at Pinheiros from 16 to 18 years old. In May 2009, Cielo broke the South American record in the 50-metre butterfly, but the record lasted only a few minutes. Cielo achieved a time of 23.49 seconds competing for the Maria Lenk Trophy but, in the next heat, Guilherme Roth swam a time of 23.46 seconds and established a new continental record. In the final, Cielo regained the record with a time of 23.42 seconds. In the same competition, he broke the South American record for the 100-metre freestyle, with a time of 47.60 seconds.
At the 2009 US World Championship Trials in Indianapolis, Cielo swam a time of 21.14 seconds in the B final of the 50-metre freestyle (the A final was limited to Americans). His time was the fastest time among all competitors, and set a new Americas record. It was also the 2nd fastest time in the event's history, 0.20 seconds behind his former training partner Frédérick Bousquet's world record.