The Brazilian boccia team arrives at the Paris Paralympic Games with the expectation of increasing the number of medals it has in the history of the mega sporting event: 11 in total (six golds, one silver and four bronzes). And one of the hopes of winning is Pernambuco’s Andreza Vitória, who won an unprecedented women’s world title in 2022.
The young woman, who is the result of renovation work carried out by the National Association of Sports for the Disabled (Ande), is competing in her second edition of the Paralympic Games (she also participated in the Tokyo Games).
At the mega sports event held in the French capital between next Wednesday (28) and September 8, several Brazilian athletes from the bocce team will have their first experience at a Paralympics. One example is André Martins, 21 years old, from Maranhão, who is the first athlete from the country to graduate from the Paralympic Sports School project, designed and carried out by the Brazilian Paralympic Committee (CPB). Other new faces from Brazil in the sport are Iuri Tauan, 21 years old, from Rio Grande do Norte, and Laissa Guerreira, 18 years old, from Paraíba, both of whom were revealed at the School Paralympics.
“It was a shorter cycle, just three years. In this Paralympic cycle, we had changes in the rules, such as gender separation, with men and women competing separately. So, we need to do new work because of that. Even so, we managed to grow during the World Cup stages with good results. We even qualified for the majority of the spots for Paris at the 2023 Santiago Parapan American Games. So, the athletes are very excited for this edition of the Games,” assessed ANDE technical supervisor Vitor Pereira.
