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Brazil dream of home glory as Walsh-Jennings aims to build on legend
- Updated: August 2, 2016
Rio de Janeiro, August 2, 2016 – Brazil’s four teams are under no illusions about what is expected of the them at the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games; double gold in front of 12,500 fans on Copacabana Beach, the spiritual home of the sport.
Two gold medals would bring an end to a 20-year wait for a women’s team to top the podium and 12 since Brazil’s men won gold for the first and only time since the sport was introduced to the Olympic Games at Atlanta 1996.
Two of the Brazilian teams ended the Netherlands 2015, FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships as world champions – Agatha Bednarczuk and Barbara Seixas in the women’s competition and Alison Cerutti and Bruno Schmidt in the men’s.
Furthermore, Pedro Salgado and Evandro Goncalves, the other Brazil men’s team at Rio 2016, won bronze. Of the four teams at Rio 2016 only Larissa Franca and Talita Antunes missed out on the World Championships podium, but they did end the year as FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour champions, a title that Alison and Bruno also picked up.
“I’m so excited,” Rio-native Pedro said. “I have never played in a venue as big as this stadium. It is a unique opportunity in my life. I just want to enjoy this moment and have fun.
“There were so many changes in these four years (since London 2012), but I was very focused in my goal to make it to the Olympics. I always kept between the best two teams from Brazil in the World Tour, so it was great to qualify for these Olympic Games, especially being a Brazilian, which means, I think, that’s it’s way harder than being from another country.”
If Brazil’s players and fans are already presuming that the gold medals are already theirs they may want to think back four years when Larissa and then partner Juliana Felisberta and Alison and Emanuel Rego went into London 2012 as reigning world champions.
Neither side was able …
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