Sport in Brazil
Some of these players can be considered super-stars, achieving celebrity status internationally and signing multi-million club contracts, as well as advertisement and endorsement deals.. Brazil invented some variations of football, such as beach soccer and footvolley.
[5] Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art that combines elements of dance and music, and is marked by deft, tricky movements that are often played on the ground or completely inverted.
[6] Brazilian jiu-jitsu originated in Brazil in the 1910s, and emphasizes ground fighting techniques and submission holds involving joint-locks and chokeholds.
Many Brazilian fighters have become significant figures in various mixed martial art tournaments abroad, some notable Brazilian fighters in these tournaments include Anderson Silva, Wanderlei Silva, Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira, Vitor Belfort, Mauricio Rua, José Aldo, Charles Oliveira, Murilo Bustamante, Junior dos Santos, Rafael dos Anjos, Fabricio Werdum, Lyoto Machida, Alex Pereira and Amanda Nunes.
The Brazilian national basketball team has also won a total of nine medals at the FIBA Americas Championship, three gold (1984, 2005, 2009) two silver (1988, 2001), and four bronze (1989, 1992, 1995, 1997).
A record nine Brazilians were on NBA rosters at the start of the 2015–16 season—Leandro Barbosa, Bruno Caboclo, Cristiano Felício, Marcelo Huertas, Nenê, Raul Neto, Lucas Nogueira, Tiago Splitter, and Anderson Varejão.
In total, Brazilian drivers have won 101 Formula One races (as of the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix), distributed between Senna (41), Piquet (23), Fittipaldi (14), Felipe Massa (11), Rubens Barrichello (11), and José Carlos Pace (1).
Boesel was part of the winning team at the 1988 Daytona 24 Hours, a race which was also won by fellow Brazilians Christian Fittipaldi (twice, in 2004 and 2014), Oswaldo Negri (2012), Kanaan (2015) and Pipo Derani (2016).
Nelson Piquet Jr. was the inaugural Formula E champion in 2014-15 and Lucas Di Grassi won 2016-17 with Audi Abt Sportsline .
The popularity of auto racing is rising, with the Stock Car Pro Series and Fórmula Truck being broadcast nationally.
In the men's game, Gustavo Kuerten is the most successful Brazilian player, with three wins at Roland Garros (1997, 2000, 2001) as well as being ranked number one in the world for almost a full year.
[19] Brazil has also had other historically important players, such as Luiz Mattar, Fernando Meligeni and Thomaz Bellucci, who were already top 30 in the ATP rankings.
Although the country had some success with swimmers like Piedade Coutinho, Tetsuo Okamoto, Manuel dos Santos and José Fiolo, the sport started to become more popular with Djan Madruga, Rômulo Arantes and Ricardo Prado in 1970s and 1980s; going through Gustavo Borges and Fernando Scherer in the 1990s, Brazilian swimming today manufactures great talents in succession.
Even female swimming has been developing and creating athletes like Etiene Medeiros, Ana Marcela Cunha and Poliana Okimoto.
Other important athletes in the history of Brazil are: Thiago Braz, Alison dos Santos, Nélson Prudêncio, Jadel Gregório, Zequinha Barbosa, Sanderlei Parrela, Claudinei Quirino, Vicente de Lima, André Domingos, Édson Ribeiro, Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima, Caio Bonfim, Rosângela Santos, Letícia Oro Melo, Mauro Vinícius da Silva and Darlan Romani.
The greatest exponents of the sport until today were Aurélio Miguel, Sarah Menezes and Rogério Sampaio, Olympic champions.
Brazil also had several other important judo athletes, such as the Olympic runners-up Douglas Vieira, Tiago Camilo, Carlos Honorato, and the Olympic bronze medalists Chiaki Ishii, Luiz Onmura, Walter Carmona, Henrique Guimarães, Leandro Guilheiro, Flávio Canto, Ketleyn Quadros, Felipe Kitadai, Mayra Aguiar, Daniel Cargnin and Rafael Silva.
Eder Jofre, Acelino Freitas, Maguila, Miguel de Oliveira, Valdemir Pereira, Rose Volante and Patrick Teixeira are former world champions.
[39] Many of the world's top skateboarders are Brazilian, including Bob Burnquist, Sandro Dias, Lincoln Ueda, Rodrigo Menezes, Luan de Oliveira, Felipe Gustavo, Rodil Ferrugem, Nilton Neves, Fabrizio Santos, Alex Carolino, Christiano Mateus, Karen Jones, Ricardo Porva, Daniel Vieira, and Og de Souza.
[40] With the rise of skateboarding to the category of Olympic sport in 2020, Rayssa Leal became famous for her silver medal obtained at the age of 13.
Several Olympic medalists in yachting have trained in Guanabara Bay, such as Martine Grael, Clinio Freitas, Daniel Adler, Eduardo Penido, Isabel Swan, Kiko Pellicano, Marcelo Ferreira, Marcos Soares, Nelson Falcão and Ronaldo Senfft.
The country also has olympic medalists from São Paulo Robert Scheidt, Torben Grael, Kahena Kunze, Reinaldo Conrad, Alexandre Welter, Bruno Prada and Peter Ficker.
More recently, in an online blitz game played in May 2020, Luis Paulo Supi defeated reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen in 18 moves after sacrificing his own Queen.
Other historically important players in the country are Gustavo Tsuboi, Cláudio Kano, Hugo Hoyama, Biriba, Cazuo Matsumoto, Thiago Monteiro and Bruna Takahashi.
The main world championships of Ice Hockey are transmitted through cable TV in the country, among them the NHL played between teams of Canada and the United States, and the European League.
The Brazilian national team will compete in the 2022 South American Rugby League Championship, their first major international tournament, which is part of the qualifying process for the 2025 World Cup.
Curling is a growing sport in Brazil; the creation of a national team was inspired by the audience for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
A temporary rink in the Eldorado Shopping Center in São Paulo featured Norwegian curler Linn Githmark and a winter-sports complex is planned, probably in the city of Campos do Jordão.
Frescobol is a native[70] Brazilian sport similar to tennis and cricket, played with a wooden racket and soft rubber ball on the beach with no scoring system.
In recent years, American football has been gaining fast popularity, with NFL games guaranteeing an audience on ESPN Brasil and Esporte Interativo.
