Brazil Competes Against Five Other Countries for Tenth Place in the Olympics
Three days before the end of the Olympic Games, Brazil will face a tight dispute with five other countries to meet the goal set by the Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB) to finish the event among the top ten medal winners.
The committee wants Brazil to finish the Olympics among the top ten considering the total number of medals, regardless of their type.
Up until 8:00 p.m. of Thursday, August 18, Brazil had a total of 14 medals – earlier that day, Martine Grael and her teammate, Kahena Kunze, won the gold medal in the 49er FX sailing competition and Isaquias Queiroz won the bronze medal for rowing in the C1 200 meter category.
With the results, Brazil reached 14th place in the ranking of the Olympic Games.
Other countries sharing the 14th place also with 14 medals include Hungary and New Zealand. Canada is 11th with 16 medals. The Netherlands and Kazakhstan are in 12th place.
All of these countries will try to catch up with and pass South Korea, which is now in 10th place with 17 medals. However, it will be difficult for them to reach Italy, currently in 9th place with a total of 23 medals.
A forecast by Folha shows that the countries fighting for the tenth place have chances of reaching between 20 and 22 medals. Brazil has at least two more medals guaranteed.
In that scenario Brazil would begin Friday with 15 medals as the team of Alison and Bruno Schmidt will play the beach volleyball final on Thursday night. The other medal guaranteed will come from men's soccer, also playing the final.
By Sunday, August 21, Brazilians will place their biggest hopes on the speed rowing competitions (the team is comprised of Isaquias Queiroz and Erlon de Souza), women's soccer playing for the bronze medal, men's volleyball playing the semifinals and Érica Sena competing in the 20-kilometer race walking.
Yane Marques, who won the bronze medal in the London 2012 Olympics, also has good chances in modern pentathlon.
Before the beginning of the Olympic Games, COB's executive director of sports, Marcus Vinícius Freire, said that Brazil had good enough athletes to "fight for 22 to 29 medals."
On Thursday, August 18, he told Folha that the original goal of finishing in the top ten "is still on." "The mathematical chances still exist, as I have been saying since 2009," said Freire.
Translated by THOMAS MUELLO