The Youth Parapan American Games in Bogotá (Colombia) begin next Thursday (2). The event is disputed by young people with disabilities who are between 12 and 20 years old and will gather around 900 athletes from 21 countries, in 12 sports. The competition was initially scheduled for 2021, but was postponed because of the covid-19 pandemic. Brazil will participate in the Youth Parapan with 96 athletes, 44 of them members of the Bolsa Atleta (a federal individual sponsorship program, considered one of the largest of its kind in the world), in addition to two coaches, who help boccia competitors. The green and yellow team starts meeting in São Paulo, at the Paralympic Training Center, starting this Monday (29). Boarding is scheduled for next Wednesday (31). Wheelchair basketball and weightlifting are the modalities in which the country will have the most representatives (16). The Brazilian delegation will also fight for medals in football for the blind, football for people with cerebral palsy (CP), goalball (a sport played by visually impaired players), judo, table tennis, wheelchair tennis and sitting volleyball. The Bogotá edition will be the fifth in the event’s history. The first took place 18 years ago, in Barquisimeto (Venezuela). The Brazilian premiere took place in 2009, coincidentally, also in the Colombian capital. The competition was last held in 2017, in São Paulo. Among the participants were Paralympic champion athletes at the Tokyo Games (Japan) in 2021, such as Mariana D’Andrea (weightlifting) and Emerson Ernesto (goalball). “What we always seek is to give athletes a first international experience in a positive way, so that they understand how competitions work, [pensem em] take the sport as a career and may play in other events in the future. Maybe a Paralympics”, detailed the Director of High Performance Sports of the Brazilian Paralympic Committee (CPB), Jonas Freire. For Amanda Braz, from goalball, Parapan de Bogotá will be the first big international challenge for Brazil. The invitation to the youth team not only moved the 18-year-old girl, who was born with glaucoma and has low vision, but also her father, who is also an athlete for the visually impaired. “Heart is racing, pounding, very anxious. The first step an athlete can take is on the base. The expectation is very high, but I’m firm not to lose focus. I hope that Parapan brings even more news to my career”, she declared. As some phases of training for the youth team coincide with those for the main teams, male and female, Amanda sometimes has the opportunity to interact with experienced names in the sport, such as veteran Romário Marques, 33 years old. Three-time world champion and Paralympic gold medalist, he competed in the Youth Parapan in 2009, a year after representing the country at the Beijing Games (China). “When the athlete goes to a youth event, he sets the goal of, one day, participating in adult competitions. This is very important for us to form athletes for the future. we have to talk to them [jovens], play our role, encourage them on and off the court to, in addition to being athletes, be good citizens”, highlighted Romário. “We [seleção de base] he always accompanies the girls and boys of the main team, following their trajectory. It’s an inspiration for sure. They are experienced, have history and are here to help us with whatever we need. This is really cool,” said Amanda. If Amanda will live an unprecedented experience in Bogotá, for Lucas Arabian, from table tennis, competing internationally (including among adults) is already a reality. In 2022, the 17-year-old boy was a bronze medalist at the World Championships in Granada (Spain), in class 5, for wheelchair users (Lucas had a spinal tumor removed when he was small). “I had surgery as soon as I got back from the Worlds. I was stopped for six months. The Youth Parapan will be a test tournament, let’s say, to see how I am, if the surgery affected anything and to pick up the pace of the game”, projected the table tennis player, who, in November, should compete in the Parapan American Games, in Santiago (Chile), being able to guarantee a place in the Paralympics in Paris (France) if he is the champion of his category. Brazil will be present in ten of the 12 modalities of the Youth Parapan. The exceptions are athletics and swimming, precisely those that distribute the most medals. On April 18, the CPB released a note explaining that it would not take the teams after the Organizing Committee of the event stated that it would not be able to offer the functional classification (process that defines the athlete’s class according to the disability) to all competitors of both sports. “As there was this lack of definition in relation to the classification and also the validation of international brands, we understood that the best situation would be to re-plan so that these athletes could have another opportunity, in another competition, at another time. We will serve them with other actions in the second semester, to make up for the absence in Parapan”, summarized Freire.
Agência Brasil
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