The start of the 2024 Olympics is just over a month away. The Olympic and Paralympic Games will be held in Paris, France, and the Brazilian delegation arrives excited to win medals. A total of 50 events will be contested, with 28 in the Olympics and 22 in the Paralympics.
To reach the world’s largest sporting event, the athletes went through moments of personal and professional triumph. Below, meet five Brazilian sportspeople who will be at the 2024 Olympics and deserve our support.
One of the biggest names in Brazilian judo, Rafaela Silva started practicing judo in an NGO created by former judoka Flávio Canto during her adolescence. In 2008, she became the under-20 world champion. Three years later, she won silver at the Paris World Championships as an adult. In London 2012, she was disqualified in the second match after applying an illegal move on Hungarian Hedvig Karakas. The following year brought glory: Rafaela became the first Brazilian judoka to win a world championship. At the Rio 2016 Olympics, she won the gold medal in her hometown, Brazil’s first in the Rio Games.
Paralympic athlete Daniel Dias was born with a congenital malformation of his upper limbs, right leg, and left foot. At age 3, he underwent surgery to use a prosthesis and began walking. As a teenager in 2004, he was inspired by the Paralympic Games and aspired to become an athlete. Today, he is Brazil’s most decorated Paralympic swimmer, with 27 medals from four Olympic Games: 14 gold, 7 silver, and 6 bronze.
The first female Olympic medalist in Brazilian artistic gymnastics, Rebeca Andrade, started practicing sports through a social project by the city hall of Guarulhos. In 2012, at just 12 years old, she competed in her first professional championship, winning the Brazil Trophy, surpassing strong gymnastics names like Daniele Hypolito and Jade Barbosa. She won silver in the all-around and gold in vault at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Additionally, Rebeca became the first Brazilian woman to win two medals in a single Olympic edition. In 2021, she also became the first Brazilian to win two medals in a single World Championship edition.
At 23, João Marcello Cardoso Pereira joins the men’s basketball team for the first time at the 2024 Olympics. Nicknamed “Mãozinha,” the Mexico City Capitanes starter is seen as a rising star in the NBA. Before moving to North America, he played for Pinheiros, Fortaleza, and Corinthians. In 2023, he won the silver medal at the World University Games while studying Physical Education. His passion for the sport runs in the family: his father, Marcelo Mãozão, was also a professional basketball player and still participates in veteran tournaments.
Current World Champion, leader in the women’s ranking, and holder of four Elite 16 titles in 2023, Ana Patrícia Silva Ramos partners with Duda at the 2024 Olympics. Coming from a humble background in Minas, Ana Patrícia always found herself in sports. Due to bullying, she found solace in football, where she felt special. Living in front of a club, she played futsal and swam. However, she was discovered for volleyball during a School Games edition, receiving an invitation from Coach Augusto Figueiredo for a trial with the Minas Gerais beach volleyball team. She moved to Betim and joined the team coached by Giuliano Sucupira of the Viva o Esporte/Ramacrisna Project, a partnership between the Ramacrisna Institute and the City of Betim. Here, she learned the fundamentals of beach volleyball and soon stood out. In the last Olympics, she finished fifth, leaving her eager for more. Now, she dreams of winning a medal.
The journey of an Olympic athlete highlights the importance of sports for children and adolescents in social vulnerability. Aware of this, Ramacrisna invests in sports as a means to transform lives. Through public and private partnerships, various projects of the Institute offer sports workshops for children and young people in vulnerable situations. Such is the case with Viva o Esporte, conducted in partnership with the City of Betim. The initiative promotes sports activities in 14 different centers, aiming to expand the availability of physical, sports, leisure, and recreation activities for the community, free of charge. Activities are available for people of all ages, genders, and with or without disabilities, under the supervision of specialized professionals.
In addition to sports, students of the Viva o Esporte/Ramacrisna Project also receive psychological, physiotherapy, and social assistance support.
The Esporte em Movimento project, sponsored by Vale, Goldman Sachs Bank, Goldman Sachs Brokerage, and the Itaú Network through the Federal Sports Incentive Law, offers different modalities such as football 7 society, football, futsal, shuttlecock, volleyball, judo, and basketball. Beyond the sporting aspect, the practice also aids in the individual’s holistic development and their formation for citizenship and leisure.
The VALE (Win, Believe, Fight, Engage) Project, sponsored by Vale through the Federal Sports Incentive Law, offers activities such as chess, football 7 society, futsal, shuttlecock, volleyball, and judo to children and adolescents aged six to 18 years. Through the Construindo o Futuro VI project, children and adolescents from Betim, Ibirité, and Sarzedo practice basketball, futsal, volleyball, handball, and capoeira.
If you want to help us transform lives, contact us. Your participation impacts many families.
Another phenomenon that the sports practiced at Ramacrisna brings is the discovery of new talents. An example is Ana Lara de Assis Nascimento, a judo student. At just 13 years old, she won the silver medal at the Regional Brazilian Championship, held in Rio de Janeiro, the same city where the 2016 Olympics took place. For Ana Lara, this is a fantastic moment as her inspirations, Rafaela Silva and Mayra Aguiar, also won medals in the same place.
She is not the only talent. The Ramacrisna judo teams have been positively highlighted. The women’s team is a two-time state champion at the Minas Gerais School Games. Similarly, the men’s team, in module 1, is also a two-time state champion at the School Games.
“Judo is the Olympic sport that has brought the most medals to Brazil, with a total of 24 achievements. This fact confirms judo as Brazil’s flagship at the Olympics, further highlighting the importance and potential of our young athletes in the national sports scene,” explains coach Caliton Silva dos Santos.
