Brazil concluded the Paris Olympics with 20 medals: 3 gold, 7 silver, and 10 bronze. Considering the expectation was for Brazil to bring home 7 gold medals, it can be said that the performance fell short of what was anticipated.
The Brazilian Olympic Committee itself set the goal of improving numbers and breaking records in Paris. The country was just one medal away from matching the 21 medals from Tokyo in 2021. However, it was far from the 7 golds it also had in the Japanese capital and in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Nonetheless, Brazil managed to maintain its tally of around 20 medals and fought for many others. According to figures from the COB itself, there were an additional 11 instances where Brazilians finished in fourth or fifth place.
The most important aspect was the evolution in the participation of Brazilian women.
Even before the Paris Olympic Games began, Brazilian women were already making history. For the first time in over a hundred years of the country’s participation in the Olympics, Brazil’s delegation had more women than men: 163 against 126, accounting for 56.4% of the total. By the end of the event, they showed that they were not just filling numbers. The majority of the twenty podiums achieved by the delegation were the result of female effort.
To start, Brazil’s three golds in Paris were won by women: Beatriz Souza in judo, Rebeca Andrade in artistic gymnastics, and the duo Duda and Ana Patrícia in beach volleyball. Twelve of the twenty medals were won by female athletes. A thirteenth podium, that of the teams in judo, was not entirely the work of women, but they played an important role. Three years ago, in Tokyo, female podiums represented 43% of Brazil’s total. In Rio, eight years ago, it was 26%.
Interestingly, they also excelled in the other medal categories: there were more silvers (four against three) and more bronzes (five against four) for women than for men.
But even with this evolution of women, the final taste is a bit bitter, with disappointment mainly due to the few golds. The COB itself could not explain well what happened, blaming it on “waves, events, and setbacks.”
There is already a kind of warning signal lit for Los Angeles 2028.
Sources: ESPN Brasil and Agência Brasil