The Team Who Will Participate in the Pan American Games Goes Through a Trial Competition in Mangaratiba
The technical committee’s procedures and the athletes’ schedule were tested in a friendly competition held at the dojo built at the Porto Real Hotel.
It was a great test. Besides the structure set up in partnership with the BOC tested for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the procedures of the technical committee and the athletes’ schedule on the competition days were under observation this Saturday, June 27th, during the Intensive Training Period for the Pan American Games, held at the Porto Real Hotel in Mangaratiba, about 110km away from Rio de Janeiro. The structure is the most reliable possible. There was a scoreboard exposed alongside three combat areas, federated referees (Jeferson Vieira, Julius Lapa and Gláucio Azevedo), coached guiding from the edge of the mat, the fights were recorded to be later analyzed and even organized supporters.
The simulation had three women’s fights and four men’s for each of the 14 called athletes: Nathália Brigida (48kg), Erika Miranda (52kg), Rafaela Silva (57kg), Mariana Silva (63kg), Maria Portela (70kg) Mayra Aguiar (78kg), Maria Suelen Altheman (+ 78kg), Felipe Kitadai (60kg), Charles Chibana (66kg), Alex Pombo (73kg), Victor Penalber (81kg), Tiago Camilo (90kg), Luciano Correa (100kg) and David Moura (100kg +).
"It was good for the athletes who will fight in Toronto to feel a little bit the pressure of the competition and be better prepared for it. But it was also very important to the spare athletes. Many of them will do this for the first time in their career and that is why they needed to better understand what to expect from the Games, “Ney Wilson said.
The spare team who will go to the Pan American Games is composed of Gabriela Clemente (48kg), Raquel Silva (52kg), Flávia Cruz (57kg), Dione Barbosa (63kg), Karol Gimenes (70kg), Aine Schmidt (78kg), Ellen Furtado (+ 78kg), Vitor Hugo Delgado (60kg), Ricardo Santos Jr (66kg), Eduardo Katsuhiro (73kg), Eduardo Yuji Santos (81kg), Eduardo Faria (90kg), Horace Antunes (100kg) and Matheus Rocha ( + 100kg).
Besides the athletes, the functional areas also had an excellent opportunity to have their procedures tested. Among those which most benefited from the trial competition were nutrition, fitness and psychology. For the nutritionist Roberta Lima, the important thing was being able to verify the proper amounts of each type of supplement, the specific range between a fight and another, beyond the challenge of meeting all athletes’ needs in one day.
"Today I had to meet 14 athletes’ needs at one; the regular number is two or three athletes. The goal is testing the supplements, which of them can help the athlete to recover and be less tired. We will do again the things that worked and adjust those which didn’t. “Roberta said. ”In the competition, we do a combination of the things that have been tested in practice. What changes is the quantity. As the intervals between fights are small, we have to adjust the quantities, thinking about the athlete’s recovery and energy for the next match, "he said.
The physical preparation was focused on warming up. An extra element of difficulty was that all athletes who will compete in the Pan had to warm up at the same time.
"Every athlete has their specific time to warm up. We did not want them alter their routine. So this strategy of having a spare team with the athletes that will simulate the difficulties they have with each of the opponents is very positive and has been tested today. Therefore, our greatest concern is to giving the right stimulus, - strength, speed, etc. - in the correct way, "Joshua said.
From the sport psychology point of view, one can say that athletes have different goals for the "shiai". But most of them want to test themselves for a sports competition. It is worth saying that the psychological preparation is an ongoing process within the Brazilian national team as part of the overall training of each athlete.
"As the name says it, it is a simulation that aims to immerse the athletes in the competition environment so that they can feel its emotional and psychological load, meaning getting acquainted with the adverse situations and even making some adjustments thinking of the Games " the psychologist Luciana Castelo Branco said.
On Sunday, the athletes will have a day off to rest. Many of them will be visited by their families inside the hotel.
The cadet and junior team also gets into the competition “mood” - With two major forthcoming competitions in July - the Pan-American Cadet and Junior Championship and the World Cadet Championship, the Management of the Cadet and Junior Teams also decided to perform a trial competition on Saturday.
"It is important to develop this spirit of competition into the athletes. During the afternoon, we will do this trial competition with our senior counterparts, since it is very important to fight against Olympic athletes. We have done it so in recent months and we have seen that it gives good results, "said Marcelo Theotônio, the Manager of the Cadet and Junior Teams. ”When you know that there are the technical committee members themselves watching you, you feel an extra pressure as an athlete. And it will be like this throughout their career, and that is why they have to learn to deal with it the best way they can. I think we will just have benefits from it, "he added.
The structure was very similar to the first team but the coaches were Erika Miranda and Rafaela Silva, a special duel in the competition. But there were comments saying they should have been excluded from the competition for speaking during the "Hajime", ie when the fight is still going on, which is forbidden according to the rules of the International Judo Federation. But the refereeing part was the responsibility of two athletes, Dione Lima and Adriana Leite, who had their decisions quite contested by the "coaches".
"I think the referee damaged my team a lot. It was my first time I was a coach and I liked it a lot, especially because I won in the end. During the celebration I had to send a message to Erika because she was thinking already that because she has won a fight her victory was guaranteed. I managed to wake up my team and celebrate in the end, " Rafaela said.
The staff dressed in blue kimono, led by the world champion of 2013, won by four to three. The blue team’s winners were Vitor Torrente, Isabela Sanches, Lincoln Neves, Breno Alessi, João Gonçalves. The white team’s winners were Nathália Mercadante, Michael Marcelino, Larissa Farias and Leonardo Gonçalves. The other athletes who fought were Larissa Pimenta, Kainan Pires, Samara Contarini, David, Rita Reis, Jeferson Santos Junior., André Humberto and João Marcos Cesarino.
