Among the ten Brazilian swimmers who will compete, starting this Monday (12), in the 25-meter Short Course World Championship, Giovanna Diamante is the one who starts the tournament with the most energy. The 25-year-old from São Paulo arrived in Melbourne (Australia) accredited by the ten medals obtained (eight gold and two silver) in ten events at the South American Games in Asunción (Paraguay), in October.
“I think I just realized that I could win [medalha] in all races when I reached the middle of the competition. I was very surprised with the result, I wasn’t expecting it. I swam very well for the moment I was training”, recognized Giovanna, Brazil Agency.
Of the ten competitions Giovanna participated in in Asunción, five were individual, with silver in the 100 and 200 m freestyle and gold in the 50, 100 and 200 m butterfly, a style in which she is an expert. In Melbourne, she will fight for medals in the 200 m freestyle and in the three butterfly competitions, with a highlight in the 100 m, in which she won bronze in the Toronto (Canada) stage of the Short Course World Cup, three weeks after the South- Americans. In that same event, the paulista came close to the podium, in fourth place, in the 200 m.
“Is it over there [Giovanna] it is very easy to swim butterfly and freestyle events. At the [Campeonato] Brazilian [em setembro], she swam the 100 m medley close to the South American record. This preparation we discussed at the beginning of the cycle, after the Tokyo Olympics [Japão]?? Let’s go like this [nadando várias provas] until 2024, close to the Olympic trials, then we focus on the main competitions and direct them to the Paris Games [França]”, explained André Ferreira, Giovanna’s coach at Esporte Clube Pinheiros, in São Paulo.
In Paris, the swimmer can compete in an individual event for the first time in an Olympics. In Tokyo, last year, she competed in the 4×200 m mixed medley relay, alongside Guilherme Basseto, Felipe Lima and Stephanie Balduccini.
The São Paulo native, by the way, has accumulated a series of debuts since 2019, starting with the Pan American Games, in Lima (Peru). In 2021, in addition to the Olympics, Giovanna competed for the first time in the Short Course World Championship, in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates). Already this year, she made her debut at the World Aquatics Championships, in Budapest (Hungary), where she swam four relays, in addition to the 100 m butterfly, reaching the best mark of her life (57s87), almost reaching the final.
The 25-year-old from São Paulo collected ten medals (eight gold and two silver) in the ten events she competed in at the South American Games in Asunción, in October this year – Wander Roberto/COB/Rights Reserved
“The Olympics, mainly, was a turning point that I needed to really take swimming to another level. International competitions are completely different from the ones we have in Brazil. Every opportunity we have to have this experience abroad comes to an end. adding to the next”, analyzed the swimmer, who debuts in Melbourne around 10 pm (Brasília time) this Monday, in the fourth round of the 50 m butterfly qualifiers.
Athletes Commission
Outside the pools, Giovanna has an active role behind the scenes. She is a member of the Athletes Commission of the Brazilian Confederation of Water Sports (CBDA). In 2020, the paulista was one of the voices that contested the fact that only one woman, among 15 swimmers, was part of the Europe Mission group, of the Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB), who traveled to training in Portugal, at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Covid-19.
At the time, the CBDA said it had established as a criterion the selection of athletes who recorded, in 2019, times within the “A” mark of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). In this scenario, only two swimmers – Etiene Medeiros and Viviane Jungblut – met the requirements at the time, and Etiene chose not to travel, as she was asthmatic, therefore, a risk group for the disease.
“We would have an Olympics with a lot of women swimming, classifying relays, and they didn’t give the girls a chance [de] train at a time when we were experiencing chaos, [com] all closed. [Desde então] The CBDA began to listen to us more”, recalled Giovanna.
Of the eight gold medals that Giovanna Diamante won at the Asunción South American Games, one of them was in the 200m butterfly event – Wander Roberto/COB/Rights Reserved
At the Budapest World Cup, women in Brazilian swimming had the best performance in the history of the event. Despite not having won medals, they were in seven of the 14 finals with swimmers from the country. Four were individual, two with Viviane Jungblut (an unprecedented feat in the same edition of the tournament) and one of them, the 1,500 m freestyle, with two athletes: Viviane and Beatriz Dizzoti. There was also presence in the finals of the women’s 4×100 and 4×200 m freestyle relays and in the mixed 4×100 m freestyle. The three with Giovanna on the team.
“When you give opportunity and visibility, it shows how much results women can reap. [No Mundial] We entered relay finals [o que não ocorria, no feminino, desde 2009], we did better results than some men. When you give us the chance to compete, we really show where women can go,” concluded the swimmer.
Brazil in Melbourne
In addition to Giovanna, Brazil will be represented in Melbourne by Stephanie Balduccini, Leonardo Coelho, Breno Correia, João Gomes Júnior, Caio Pumputis, Gabrielle Roncatto, Gabriel Santos, Pedro Spajari and Nicholas Santos. The latter, aged 42, is also the Brazilian who has reached the podium the most times in the Short Course World Championship. There are 11 medals in the event, five of which are gold, the last one in the 50 m butterfly, in the 2021 edition. He is the oldest swimmer to win a title at this level in the pools.
In the last World Cup, in Abu Dhabi, Brazilian swimming was on the podium three times. In addition to Nicholas Santos’ gold, two bronze medals came. One in the men’s 4×200 m freestyle relay, with Breno Correia, Kaique Alves, Murilo Sartori and Fernando Scheffer. Another in the 50 m breaststroke, also among men, with João Gomes Júnior. The country ranked 12th in the medal table.
