The Olimpus Project, which provides for the payment of financial aid to athletes and coaches in the State, aims to promote sport in Mato Grosso and the participation of state athletes in national and international competitions.
According to the survey, 73% of those selected in the National Athlete category are between 14 and 24 years old, and 81% in the International Athlete category are between 14 and 25 years old. The monthly scholarship values in each of the categories are R$1,200 and R$2,000, respectively.
“Normally, maturity in sports and high-performance results happen more or less in this age group. There are different modalities, in which the athletes are a little older, but, in general, the average age is the same among the elite of the sport”, explains Secel secretary, Jefferson Carvalho Neves.
Considered high-performance and aimed at athletes who have achieved results in national and international competitions or rankings, the National and International categories currently have 215 beneficiaries in total. The sports with the largest number of athletes are athletics, wrestling, handball, judo, rugby, goalball and blind football.
Among the high-performance highlights benefiting from the Olimpus program are the Wrestling athletes, Igor Queiroz and Guilherme Porto; athletics competitors Lissandra Campos, Jânio Varjão, Franciely Marcondes, Elaine Gama, Arthur Curvo and Wendell Jerônimo; and Paralympic athletes Ana Carolina Duarte, from goalball, and Érika Cheres, from judo.
As for the gender of the participants, men are still the majority, with a percentage of 60% compared to women, who occupy 40% of the vacancies in the National and International categories of the latest Bolsa Atleta notice. In any case, they have raised the level of sport in Mato Grosso. There are 86 women benefiting and many of them are standouts in their sports, such as athlete Lissandra Campos, who recently won the gold medal in the long jump event at the South American Indoor Athletics Championship.
The Olimpus program’s annual report also contains information about the athletes included in the youth categories. Aiming to encourage the sports training of new sporting talents, the monthly aid from the State Government provides scholarships of R$200, R$400 and R$800, in the Children’s, Basic and Student categories (in that order).
In total, there are 273 athletes in the three categories, who compete in various sports, among which athletics, basketball, handball, futsal and volleyball have the largest number of beneficiaries.
At Children’s there are 60 athletes aged 9, 10, 11 and 12, with 15 benefiting at each age. Differentiating themselves by the position achieved in the competitions, the Base and Student categories include athletes aged between 12 and 17 years old and both have 59% of beneficiaries in the 12 to 14 year old age group.
At 15 years old, wrestling athlete Raphael Duarte is one of the program’s scholarship recipients in the Student category. This year, the young athlete was called up by the Brazilian Wrestling Confederation (CBW) to join the Brazilian youth team for the sport. In 2023, Raphael was world school champion at Gymnasiade and leader of the national freestyle and Greco Roman 85kg rankings.
“The program fulfills a fundamental role, which is to provide opportunities when athletes are starting out, and continues to provide support and conditions to continue training and developing further and further. The results are incredible with many athletes reaching podiums and taking the name of Mato Grosso to all corners of the country and the world”, concludes Jefferson.
Check out the attached Secel report.
Tags: majority highperformance athletes receive scholarships Government years
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