COB cites ‘random factors’ and difficulty in repeating Tokyo’s success after teams fall – 02/24/2024 – Sport

Less than six months before the start of the Paris Olympic Games, the COB’s (Brazilian Olympic Committee) objective of obtaining a new medal record suffered a blow with the failures of the men’s football team and the women’s basketball team in the competitions. for Olympic places.

Without the two teams, the committee already admits that it has become more difficult to surpass the 21 medals won at the Tokyo Games (seven golds, six silvers and eight bronzes), which made the country close the mega-event with its best participation in history, in 12th in the overall medal table.

“The work was developed so that there is once again an evolution of Brazilian participation in the Olympic Games. However, we know how the sport deals with random factors and the difficulty of repeating the excellent result achieved in Tokyo 2020”, he told Sheet the president of COB, Paulo Wanderley.

Although he is cautious about reducing expectations for Paris, the director also mentions that in addition to the objective of improving performance this year, the committee is also already working with the next editions of the Olympic Games in mind.

“COB’s objective is to always seek progress in the most immediate results”, said the director. “But also already thinking about Los Angeles 2028 and Brisbane 2032,” he added.

Before the pre-Olympic men’s football and pre-Olympic women’s basketball competitions, Wanderley stated on several occasions that the goal was to set a new record in Paris. The attitude changed with the unexpected eliminations.

On the pitch, the men lost to Argentina, 1-0, in the last round of the pre-Olympic final quadrangular, preventing the country from fighting for the third consecutive gold medal.

Although not rare in the history of the Olympics, the absence of the current two-time Olympic champions reinforced the list of embarrassments caused by the institutional disorder in the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation).

The women’s basketball team, in turn, repeated the disappointment that occurred in the last Olympic cycle, for the Tokyo Games, when it was left out of the mega event for the first time since its debut in 1992.

Silver at the 1996 Atlanta Games and bronze at the 2000 Sydney Games, the green and yellow team competed in the pre-Olympics in Brazil, in Belém, but failed to achieve any victory against Australia, Serbia or Germany, who took the three places up for grabs for the four teams involved.

For now, Brazil has five teams from different sports already qualified for the Paris Olympics, four of which are female (volleyball, handball, rugby and football) and only one is male, volleyball.

Men can still win places in basketball, handball, rugby and also in 3×3 basketball, a sport that debuted in Tokyo without the participation of Brazilians and which is the only one in which Brazilian women can still reach another collective place.

In total, the Brazilian delegation had seven teams at the last Olympics and two of them brought medals, men’s football (gold) and women’s volleyball (silver).

Open disputes

Owner of three Olympic medals, all bronze (London-1948, Rome-1960 and Tokyo-1964), the men’s basketball team will compete in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in July in search of a place.

The competition, to be held in four venues —Valencia (Spain), Piraeus (Greece), Riga (Latvia) and San Juan (Puerto Rico)—, will bring together 24 countries and will define four places.

In their group, Brazil will face Cameroon and Montenegro. If they finish first or second in this group, they will be able to face Latvia —who will play at home—, Georgia or the Philippines.

“Based on what they did in the World Cup and because they are hosting, Latvia enters with favoritism, but I’m sure we can be very competitive. The first thought is to prepare well and get through the group, to have the possibility of playing for a place in the decisive phase”, said coach Gustavo de Conti.

In handball, the men’s team will also compete in the pre-Olympics, scheduled for the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th of March. Brazil is in the so-called tournament 1, out of a total of three. Each competition will have four teams, who play against each other, and the best two will take places in Paris. Spain, Slovenia and Bahrain are the Brazilians’ opponents.

In rugby sevens, the Brazilian men’s team came third in the South American Championship and will now compete in the world repechage, from June 21st to 23rd. Twelve teams from all continents participate in the dispute, which will determine the last place for Paris.

The only team sport that still has undefined Brazilian participation in both men’s and women’s is 3×3 basketball. In its second appearance at the Games after debuting in Tokyo, the sport will define the last classified in both genders after the pre-Olympic competitions, from May 3 to 5.

Only the champion of each competition guarantees an Olympic place. Among women, Brazil will face Germany, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Japan and Kenya. The men’s opponents will be Egypt, France, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia and Puerto Rico.

Considering all sports, the Brazilian delegation already has 160 places guaranteed for the Paris Olympic Games. In Tokyo, Brazil had its largest delegation in an edition held outside the country, with 302 athletes (161 men and 141 women).

It was the first time that the country surpassed the 300 athletes mark in an Olympics abroad. In 2016, at the Rio Games, Brazil had 465 athletes (256 men and 209 women), but many places were obtained automatically as it was the host country.