Team Brazil summons 11 athletes for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

Passport stamped! The 11 athletes summoned to represent Brazil at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics are defined. The classified modalities and their representatives were announced in a live stream on Instagram of the Brazil Olympic Committee (COB). Most athletes represent bobsled. The team will be formed by Edson Bindillati, Edson Martins, Erick Vianna, and Rafael Souza, with Jefferson Sabino as a backup. After a fierce dispute, Manex Silva, for men, and Jaqueline Mourão and Bruna Moura, for women, were summoned in cross-country skiing. The spot in alpine skiing went to Michel Macedo. Sabrina Cass, in freestyle skiing moguls, and Nicole Silveira, in skeleton, fulfilled the requirements for the spots and confirmed their participation in the next Games.

“It was a very intense period of searching for spots and preparation. Confirming the classification so close to the start of the competition, while requiring a greater effort from the team behind the scenes, which works with two or even three different scenarios, also allows athletes to know what they will face during the Olympic Games. I feel that the team will arrive at Beijing 2022 well prepared to evolve in relation to PyeongChang 2018”, said Anders Pettersson, head of the Brazilian Mission at the Games.

The live stream was attended by Isabel Clark, owner of the best Brazilian result in the Winter Olympic Games, with 9th place in the snowboard cross in Turin 2006, and Edson Bindilatti, who, with the confirmation of the bobsled team, will be at his fifth participation in the competition. The Bahian, who started in athletics, became a symbol of the ice modality in the more than 20 years dedicated to descents with the sled.

“When we started, we didn’t know much what to do, we had a lot of support from other teams, from foreign coaches. Today, we are much more mature. We hope to reach the final. There are 28 teams in the 4-man and 30 teams in the 2-man, and we want to be in the top 20”, said Bindilatti, who announced his retirement from the national team after Beijing.

“It will be my last edition of the Olympic Games as an athlete, but I want to continue working off the ice to give opportunities to other athletes”, added Bindilatti, who is also part of the COB Athletes’ Commission.

The first COB operational team leaves Brazil on the 20th to get everything ready in the two Olympic villages with Brazilians. In Yanqing will be bobsled, alpine skiing, and skeleton. And in Zhangjiakou, cross-country skiing and freestyle skiing. From cross country skiing and freestyle skiing, the first athletes are expected to arrive in China on the 27th. In ice sports, both bobsled and skeleton must land in Beijing on the 29th.

Brazil’s participation in the Chinese Games will begin even before the Opening Ceremony, on 02/04, at the legendary Bird’s Nest, on the same stage as the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games. The young Sabrina Cass, junior world champion when she was still competing under the United States flag, will compete in the first classification event on 02/03, starting at 6 pm, Beijing time.

“The team is strong. It was very good to see young athletes who are going to Beijing but who will still evolve in their competitive capacity, which is the case of Manex and Sabrina. And others like Eduarda Ribera and Augustinho Teixeira, who sought classification until the end and failed. We have a very strong team for the upcoming Milan-Cortina Winter Games. Also, I think it was nice to have a very fierce competition for spots, especially in cross-country skiing, and it’s very good for the country’s sport to have more athletes with chances of qualifying”, said Isabel Clark.

“I really hope that my result is surpassed in Beijing 2022”, she added.

Beijing 2022 will be the ninth Brazilian participation in the Winter Games, which began in Albertville 1992. The country’s record was in Sochi 2014, with 13 athletes in seven modalities. In total, up to Beijing, 35 Brazilian athletes, ten women, in eight sports (alpine skiing, bobsled, cross-country skiing, luge, snowboarding, biathlon, freestyle skiing, and figure skating) participated in the competition. This means that we will have athlete debuts – Manex, Bruna, Sabrina, and Nicole participate in the Olympic Games for the first time, modalities (skeleton), and events – moguls in freestyle skiing and women’s team sprint in cross-country skiing.

“Brazil has already started the campaign in Beijing 2022 with good news, with unprecedented participation in both modalities and events. We also expect to break records in the number of starts in some events. For this, we had to stay ahead of some traditional countries, which shows that the athletes are seeing the work developed by COB and the Confederations of Ice and Snow and believe in the career project”, added Anders.