New scientific coordinator and psychologist join CUIDAR
Multidisciplinary team now has 35 professionals
By Helena Petry - in
Scientific coordinator Carolina Franco and psychologist Paulo Gasparini are the newest hires at Flamengo's Unified Center for Identification and Development of Performance Athletes (CUIDAR). The team now has 35 professionals working to enhance interdisciplinarity in sports, combining athlete training with work from various disciplines, working collaboratively and complementing each individual's development, based on six pillars: physical preparation, technique, tactics, and intellectual, educational, and emotional development.
Sports Science Manager at Mais Querido and creator of CUIDAR, Izabel Miranda commented on the importance of the new hires.
"Because we work multidisciplinary, psychology is also a performance-enhancing aspect. In this sense, he was the last professional to be chosen because I was building the teams to ensure they were well-balanced, ensuring all internal processes were well-balanced, so that psychology could step in at that precise moment," Izabel explained. "And then came Carolina, the other scientific coordinator who, in addition to working with statistics, plays a fundamental role in integrating information through biostatistics and internal processes."
Carolina Franco, who holds a degree in Physical Education and a Master's in Sports Science from the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, spent five years at Minas Tênis Clube working as a technical-scientific analyst. In 2015, she began her doctorate, again at UFMG and in partnership with the University of Technology Sidney in Australia. Upon returning to Brazil, she accepted an invitation from Mais Querido to join the club's multidisciplinary team working on Olympic sports.
"Carolina has a strong focus on exercise physiology, having just finished her doctorate. She spent a year in Australia and is working on this project to integrate information so that technical feedback is immediate. That's the trick. There's no point in me going there to evaluate you and having the data arrive much later. It has to arrive immediately, for both the coach and the athlete," stated Izabel Miranda.
A psychologist for the Brazilian Olympic Committee since 2014, Paulo Gasparini worked with the diving team at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. He also worked for the Brazilian Volleyball Confederation, where he monitored beach volleyball youth players, and for Flamengo Regatas Club itself, providing consultancy to professional athletes since 2004. In 2018, he officially joined the Mais Querido team.
"Paulo will join the performance department, along with the nutritionist, the physical trainers, and the two coordinators. We have a well-defined performance department and a well-defined health department with physical therapy and medicine," said Izabel.
Launched in October 2016, CUIDAR was a milestone in Flamengo's Olympic sports program, formalizing a program focused on supporting coaches' decision-making. Now, the next step is hiring a medical coordinator, who will complete the team for 2018.