Olympic influencer from Brazil predicted going to the Paris Olympics | olympic blog

The conversation was going on freely in the room of a doctor’s office in São Paulo. The Olympic athlete spoke about how he is recognized outside Brazil and not in his own country, but that he would like to change the situation through social media. He was confident, after all, 100 days before the Paris Games, he had confirmed his third consecutive Olympic participation.

A trip to the bathroom changed everything. In the hallway, he found a woman, black like him.

– You are a badminton athlete, right? -he asked, already knowing the answer.

– I am – the athlete responded promptly, extending his hand to greet the woman while she held the office door with her other arm, with the idea of ​​not letting her son escape.

– I’m your fan. You represent a lot to us. I was a handball athlete. Good luck at the Olympics – he said quickly, without even having time to take a photo with the athlete before saying goodbye.

As a child, Ygor Coelho talks about his dream of competing in the Olympics in France

Ygor Coelho, from Rio de Janeiro, 27 years old, was already 30th in the world in badminton and is the greatest Brazilian athlete in the history of the sport. Titles in Pan American Games and Championships, gold and silver medals in stages of the world circuit and today he is 44th in the world. At 19 years old, he was the first Brazilian in the sport to compete in an edition of the Olympic Games, at home, in Rio 2016. And, according to his own words, an unknown in the country.

However, it was not the same Ygor who returned from that few steps down the doctor’s office corridor. Wide smile, flushed black skin and puffed out chest.

– Did you see? I know what she meant, it means a lot to us, he said to me, proudly.

It’s been almost a decade since the resident of the Chacrinha favela left the west zone of Rio de Janeiro to live in Europe thanks to badminton. The last seven years in Denmark, one of the sport’s centers in the world, made the boy from Rio a well-known man and, according to him, full of fans and followers in Asia. China, Thailand, Malaysia, it is not uncommon for Ygor to visit these countries where his sports equipment is sold a lot and he takes part in advertising campaigns. Asian fame, in fact, makes badminton the second most practiced sport in the world, according to some surveys.

But Ygor doesn’t disconnect from Brazil, from Rio, from the hill where he started playing for Associação Miratus, an NGO created by his father, Sebastião. And the reality linked to drug trafficking, crime and militias also doesn’t let him forget the poverty of the sporting culture in the country where he was born. Social networks are the tool he uses to stay connected to his origins. Hence the concern with increasing the number of fans, which reached 30 thousand on Instagram and 25 thousand on Tik Tok this month.

Olympic influencer suffers in Brazil. Ygor could look to Hugo Calderano for a mentor. The 27-year-old table tennis player, also the best in the country’s history in the sport and on his way to the third Olympics, is one of those phenomena full of fans in Asia, especially in China. Even so, still far from reaching millions on the networks. Yes, the networks that separate them from their rivals are more sociable in connecting them to their fans. But how can we transform success on the courts and tables into numbers outside the field of play?

A fan. Only one. She proved to Ygor that his influence goes far beyond the screen. On a daily basis, an athlete leaving the favela, representing black Brazilians around the world and being about to compete in the third Olympics is truly serving as a mentor for a new generation.

The Ygor of 2024 would certainly inspire the Ygor of 2009. A boy who dreamed of traveling the world and competing in the Olympics in France. Detail: Paris was chosen as the Olympic host only in 2017.

– Badminton makes me travel all over America. And it will take me to France, my dream is to go to France and play in the Olympics for Brazil – prophesied the 12-year-old boy who turned his dream into reality.

At Fridays, Marcel Merguizo writes Olympic chronicles in ge