Northeast dominates Athlete of the Year award after leading role in the Olympics

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Italo Ferreira, Ana Marcela Cunha, Isaquias Queiroz and Hebert Conceição. No region brought as many individual gold medals to Brazil at the Tokyo Olympics as the Northeast.

And the unprecedented role of the Northeast in the Games is reflected in a historic majority among the athletes nominated for the 2021 Brazil Olympic Award, promoted by the COB (Olympic Committee of Brazil) and which elects the best athlete of the year.

Among the six names competing for the award (three in the men’s category and three in the women’s), five come from the Northeast.

In addition to the aforementioned gold medalist quartet, Rayssa Leal, silver in skate street, completes the region’s quintet. Rebeca Andrade is the sixth nominee.

Italo was born in Baía Formosa, in Rio Grande do Norte; Rayssa in Imperatriz, Maranhão; Ana, Isaquias and Hebert are from Salvador, Bahia. Rebeca is from São Paulo from Guarulhos.

The award began to be distributed in 1999 and the Northeast had never had a majority among the competitors. The region’s weight had been growing, having won half of the six nominees in three recent editions, 2015, 2018 and 2019 —in 2020, there was no election due to the pandemic.

It is also symbolic that, for the first time, the award ceremony takes place in a northeastern city: Aracaju, in Sergipe. The event is scheduled for the night of this Tuesday (7).

Both the nominees and the winner are chosen by an electoral college of 230 people, made up of journalists, officials, athletes, former athletes, sponsors and other figures related to the sport.

Historically, the Southeast has the hegemony of both competitors and awardees.

Southeasterners account for 60% of the 138 nominees from 1999 to date, with more than half of the winners.

The Northeast is the second region with more competitors, just over 18%, just ahead of the South, with 16%. Among those awarded, the order is inverted: 10 southerners and 7 northeasterners.

The only region that has never had a nominee is the North of Brazil. Brazilians born abroad, but naturalized, competed for the prize three times — and Argentine tennis player Fernando Meligeni won, in 2003.

Among the athletes competing this year, aquatic marathon runner Ana Marcela Cunha, 29, born in Salvador, is the most experienced. She has been nominated six other times and has even won on two occasions, in 2018 and 2015.

In Tokyo, Ana won gold, her first Olympic medal. Although she has never been on the podium at the Games before, she has already been one of the top athletes in the open water marathon for years, with five world titles in her career (2011, 2015, 2017 and 2019 twice).

Daughter of a swimming father and a gymnast mother, she started swimming at the age of two, still in Salvador. He remained in the city until 2007, when he moved to Santos, where he currently lives and trains.

Canoeist Isaquias Queiroz, 27, competed for the award five times and is, among the nominees this year, the one that won the most: 2015, 2016 and 2018.

He gave his first strokes in the city where he was born, Ubaitaba, in the interior of Bahia, a place that currently serves as a training center for athletes in the sport.

After three medals at Rio-2016 (two silvers and one bronze), in Tokyo he won his first gold medal in the Olympics. He is currently a Flamengo athlete and trains in Lagoa Santa (MG).

The Bahian trio is completed by boxer Hebert Conceição, 23. To the sound of Olodum and inspired by the Olympic champion Robson Conceição, he won the second gold medal in Brazilian boxing with a knockout in the final, in Tokyo.

Hebert tries to give his sport the second athlete of the year award — in 2019, Bia Ferreira, also born in Salvador, won the dispute.

He was born in Salvador and graduated from the Champion gym, one of the most traditional in the city, but since 2017 and even Tokyo he came to train in São Paulo. After the Games, he returned to live in Salvador and is now considering leaving Olympic boxing and entering professional boxing — the circuits are separate.

Italo Ferreira, 27, was an Olympic champion in his debut in surfing in Games. World champion in 2019, he never competed for the prize.

Italo was born, grew up and still lives in Baía Formosa (Rio Grande do Norte), a city with which he has a strong relationship and where he insists on staying as long as he can between the many trips he makes on the circuit.

This is the third time that surfing is in contention. Before, Gabriel Medina competed in 2018 and 2019, but did not win.

Skateboarding will be in dispute for the second time and also in search of the first achievement. In 2018, Pedro Barros was one of the nominees.

This year, Rayssa Leal, 13, will try for the award. She was a silver medalist in skate street, in the sport’s debut in the Olympics. She was also second at the Worlds, behind compatriot Pamela Rosa.

She lives in Imperatriz, Maranhão, the city where she was born, grew up and earned the nickname “Fadinha”.

The only one from outside the Northeast in the dispute is Rebeca Andrade, 22, from Guarulhos (SP). She, however, is perhaps the favorite.

In Tokyo, Rebeca became the first Brazilian gymnast to win an Olympic medal and won a double. After Simone Biles left a series of disputes (in a historic move, she prioritized her mental health over sports results), the Brazilian won silver in the general individual and gold in the vault.

The paulista competes for the award for the first time in a modality that has already won it in nine editions.

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