While athletes increase the number of Brazilian Olympic medals in the London Olympics, youth promises of the national sports are training hard to shine in the Rio 2016 Games. This is the case of Acauan Dalóia, in BMX, and Amanda Lee, in judo, who, with the help of the Bolsa-Atleta (Athlete Scholarship), of the Ministry of Sports, dedicate themselves to training in order to conquer a place in the Olympics four years from now.

"The Athlete Scholarship is a guaranteed resource for the athlete. A sponsorship may enter in a certain period of the year, or it may leave, it could last or not, depending on the sponsor. The Scholarship is a state policy to support the athlete consistently," says the director of High Performance of the Ministry of Sports, Marco Aurelio Klein. With the benefit of the program, young athletes fund their travel expenses in competitions and displacements for training.

From the 259 athletes competing in the London Olympic Games, 111 benefit from the Athlete Scholarship. In Paralympics, the number is even higher: 156 scholarship athletes from a total of 182 who were classified. The Athlete Scholarship has awarded more than 18,000 scholarships, and this year alone, 4,243 athletes are being benefited from the program in 53 Olympic and Paralympics' modalities.

26 July 2012