Flamengo's Olympic gyms are already in full swing in Gávea. Since the beginning of the year, around 700 athletes have been training hard to achieve their goals. The Olympic cycle leading up to the Tokyo 2020 Games is already taking shape with the technical planning of the club's multidisciplinary team. For Flamengo's artistic gymnastics team, which features the Brazilian national team's top medalists, the base and wingers will receive separate attention. The Official Website spoke exclusively with Luisa Parente, Mais Querido's land sports manager, who commented on the process.

 

The artistic gymnastics plans for 2017 will be different for both youth and elite athletes. At the elite level, we've managed to keep all the gymnasts at the club, each in their own post-Olympic phase. It'll be a more relaxed year for everyone. It's a period of recovery, of repositioning the girls in relation to the club and the national team. We'll have tryouts for the national team, which is currently disbanded, and this year we'll have the world championships in October. So, despite being the first of the cycle, a post-Olympic year, there are a lot of new people emerging. It's not a decisive year, but it already projects what's to come. We continue our partnership with the Brazilian Olympic Committee, mainly because we have the top gymnasts with us.

 

Flavia Saraiva, Rebeca Andrade, and Jade Barbosa are the main names for the new cycle, but we have Dani Hypólito, a phenomenon with five Olympics under her belt and, given the International Federation system, which increasingly opens up opportunities for specialties, shouldn't be ruled out. We still have a long way to go to see who can still make it to the end in one piece.

We have great expectations for working with the youth team. We've managed to rebuild the coaching staff, having held a tryout at the end of last year. The women's team is well underway, and we're making a small adjustment to the men's team to achieve better results this year, which is expected. In the men's team, we were slower, recovering from years without support and structure. Since last year, we've been rebuilding the category, and this year, we'll have a more difficult result for the youth team.

 

2024
The process of developing our men's team is a bit longer, especially given the sport's history at Gávea. Therefore, we only project national and international results toward the end of the cycle, with an eye toward 2024. Ultimately, we have a medium- to long-term plan. It's a year of hard work and joy, because I believe artistic gymnastics is a sport that brings a lot of joy. I hope this generation will be just like that—very joyful and passionate about gymnastics, just as I am. Ultimately, the focus is on Tokyo 2020, but in terms of developing athletes, Flamengo's philosophy, we're looking forward to a wonderful generation for 2024.