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With 500 days left for the Paris-2024 Olympic Games, Brazilian athletes are already starting to adapt to the city that will support the country’s delegation. This Tuesday (14th), the team of young Taekwondo athletes trained at the Ginásio das Docas, in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, north of the French capital and which will be the home of the Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB). RFI accompanied the team’s meeting with children from a local school and heard from the authorities how Brazil’s preparation is going.
Maria Paula Carvalho, from RFI
For athletes like Sandy Macedo, 21 years old, who dreams of an Olympic ranking in female Taekowndo, it was a different training session. At Ginásio das Docas, this afternoon, her blows were closely monitored by Laila, 10 years old, a student at the Petit Prince school in the region.
“It’s exciting to be able to be at the headquarters of the Olympic Games, to follow all the structure that they are building, it’s cool because you are motivated to work harder and, who knows, next year to be here”, says Sandy, in an interview with RFI Brazil.
For Laila, that was incentive enough: “I also want to be a Taekwondo champion”, she adds to the article. Her school will be available to Brazil at the Paris Games next year for the installation of support teams for the athletes.
Athlete from Minas Gerais, Gabriel Turíbio, also present at training, is another one who dreams big. “Classification is difficult, you have to participate in international competitions and look for points in the ranking, but we are on the way and my goal is to get there”, he says.
19 ranked athletes
If for these young people to compete in the Olympics will still require a lot of effort, others are guaranteed. “Today we have 19 athletes classified for the Olympic Games and we intend to reach 350 athletes classified for 2024”, says the director of High Performance Sports at COB, Ney Wilson.
COB president Paulo Wanderley believes that most of the preparation work has already been done. “Everything is already prepared. Here is practically the final stretch for the Paris 2024 Games”, he says.
Wanderley explains that Saint-Ouen will be the main base of the Brazil team. “Our athletes will be here, we are close to the Olympic village, which is a facilitator, and they will receive the main services of medical care, nutritionists, psychologists and physiotherapy from Brazilian professionals who take care of them in Brazil”, he explains.
Located in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, the municipality of almost 50,000 inhabitants is 600 meters from the future Olympic Village. It was chosen for its proximity and the facilities it offers the Brazilian delegation.
In addition to the school and Ginásio das Docas, the Brazilian delegation will also have at its disposal the Château de Saint-Ouen, where health care will be given to the athletes, there will be a food court and a meeting point for the athletes with their friends and relatives. To mark the 500 days to the 2024 Paris Games, a Brazilian style lunch was served with rice and beans, foods that athletes will not be without during the French season.
Other places to be used by Brazilians are the Estufa Wangari, renovated and transformed into a convention room, and the Parque das Docas.
The mayor of Saint Ouen, Karim Bouamrane, praised the partnership with the Brazilians. The contract with COB was signed in June last year. “Brazil is the greatest sports nation in the world, one of the greatest cultural nations in the world and with the Amazon it is part of the lungs of humanity”, he describes. “They have always been pioneers on a cultural, sporting and social level. We have many political battles converging with Brazil”, says Bouamrane, who claims to be learning Portuguese to receive the visitors.
Finally, he points out that the most important aspect of this partnership are “the values carried by the Brazilian Olympic team: generosity, humility, human warmth and altruism”, he concludes.
The Brazilian operation will operate in Saint-Ouen during the period of the Games: from July 18, the opening date of the Olympic Village, until August 11, when the closing ceremony will take place.