www.brazilianpost.co.uk • Issue n. 71

GOLDEN SUMMERRead more on page 2 >>

September 11th - 24th 2012

LONDON EDITION

The flame that lit up London for six golden weeks has flickered its last light for now in a closing ceremony that brought an end to the Paralympic Games and Britain’s Olympic summer.

SPORT: p11Re-cap on who inspired and impressed at the London Paralympic Games

PROFILE: p07Exclusive interview: Paralympic athlete Natália Mayara speaks about her life

02 | September 11th - 24th 2012

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ParaLYMPIC gaMeS

Last act of London’s golden summer

By guilherme reis

London’s Olympic flame is out. The sprinter Jonnie Peacock and swimmer Ellie Simmonds, British darlings of the crowd, were responsible for putting out the flame of the pyre at the London’s Olympic Stadium on Sunday, September 9, marking the end of the Paralympics and Great Britain’s golden summer. For six weeks the world celebrated the big-gest sporting event on Earth and London was praised for exceeding expectations. In a period where the British looked in the mirror, many were pleasantly sur-prised by what they saw.London now delivers the Olympic flag to Rio de Janeiro with the message of a multi-cultural nation that embraces all races without discrimination in a city that is sometimes mistaken for being cold, was a warm, organized and cheer-ful host. Now it is the turn of Brazilians to showcase their culture, diversity and prepare a memorable party four years from now. London 2012 is over, but the Olympic flame is only resting, so that in 2016 the world can be enchanted again by another epic celebration of sport and hu-man relations.

Closing ceremony Celebrating the seasonal cycle of ancient and modern festivals that take place throughout the year, world-class mu-

sical performances took the audience on a journey through Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. The ceremony al-so honored servicemen and women, and particularly the work of charity Help for Heroes, with Captain Luke Sinnott, a dou-ble amputee, climbing to the top of the flag pole to hoist the Union Flag. A mo-torcade of weird and wonderful vehicles then stormed into the Olympic Stadium, as ex-serviceman Rory Mackenzie deliv-ered a rousing speech.The evening also saw the Paralympic Flag handed over to Mayor of Rio de Janeiro Eduardo Paes, cueing a colorful musical performance by Rio 2016. At the end of the night, as the Paralympic Flame be-gan to fade, ParalympicsGB gold medal-lists Ellie Simmonds and Jonnie Peacock transferred the Flame to a Paralympic Torch. They then proceeded to light hun-dreds of torches held by members of the cast throughout the field of play before it was extinguished. The ceremony end-ed with a spectacular fireworks display over the Olympic Stadium and Olympic Park, followed by fireworks along the Riv-er Thames.

best Paralympics everEvery day records were broken at the The London Paralympic Games which sold 2.7 million tickets, nearly 900 thousand more than in Beijing four years ago, and sales unreleased yielded about £45 mil-

lion, exceeding the organisers original goal of £35 million pounds. The coverage and intense interest was felt everywhere, and Brazilian Alan Fonteles’ shocking vic-tory over favourite Oscar Pistorius in the 200m finally supplanted coverage of foot-ball in Brazil, said Xavi Gonzalez, chief executive of the International Paralym-pic Committee (IPC).More importantly, it was the consoli-dation of Paralympic sport into a new perspective, overcoming the clichés to enter the reality of the professionalism and high performance for people with disabilities. London, the birthplace of the Paralympic competitions in 1948, is again a turning point for event. At the closing ceremony, the President of the Organizing Committee of the Games, Se-bastian Coe, remembered the terrorist attack in the subways of London on Ju-ly 7, 2005, that came just one day after the announcement that the city would host the 2012 Games. Speaking of a med-ic who was a gamesmaker in London he said “On 7/7, I saw the worst of hu-manity. Now, I have seen the best of hu-manity.” Coe also said that: “Sport and disability would never be thought of in the same way again”.

Read more about the london Paralym-pic games on our sports pages and see events in pictures on page 8.

brazil | 03

CoMMUnICatIon

At internet times, the law is still black and white

by ana toledo

How long ago does it seem since the clas-sic song Girl from Ipanema was released? At the time ,the Volkswagen Beetle was the best-selling car, the Brazilian Soccer team were only twice times champion of the world and Brazil had yet to witness its period of military dictatorship. The “age of the radio” was drawing to a close as television was taking its first steps to becoming the hegemonic medium of world mass communication. In Bra-zil, the TV was still in its infancy, black and white with limited broadcasts reach-ing long distances and the use of the vid-eo tape was just starting having recently arrived in the country. This was setting in which the main law of communica-tion in the country, the Brazilian Tele-communications Code (see box opposite) was born and has remained until today.On 27 August the Code “celebrated” its 50th birthday. Despite its importance, the anniversary was not an agenda for major media output and the Brazilian people were not invited to debate the code’s longevity or relevance, failure to cover it in the news has weakened its relevance. This omission is reflective of wider trends in what the vehicles of communication deem important a top-ics to make the news. Therefore, with-out an adjustment of the communication system, decisions like this will contin-ue and the Brazilian public will be left in the dark, reflecting interests that are not always the same as those of civil so-ciety. Any move to establish a new Reg-ulatory Law could help guarantee more plurality in communications and the es-tablishment of a competent body to reg-ulate it. Contrary to what the 50-year old law states, politicians are owners or members of different communication vehicles (see chart), something which is rarely discussed openly in brazil.

Anyone interested in press freedom and particularly when reflecting on recent enquiries and scandals in the UK, you may have noticed some differences in the communication system here which seek to promote or preserve the integrity of the press. The first example here is that law regulating the communication sys-tem is reviewed and updated every five years to keep up with technology and so-cial changes. The license fees paid in the UK and other European were established in order to finance the development of communications outside of government subsidies or private sector, because ear-ly regulators considered that this would generate real public interest and give even small groups a more active role. In addition to this, to ensure quality in the sector, a giverned board has always pro-moted plurality as a means of ensuring the system functions effectively.But of course no system is perfect as you can see in frequent cases of privacy, when looking at the kiss and tell ethos of the British tabloids, questionable trans-missions by television stations and of course the scandal that has emerged from evidence that thouseands of peo-ple’s phones were hacked by the Eng-lish tabloid News of the World, owned by Murdoch.Unlike what happened here with Mur-doch, closed the doors of the publication (at least here), similar events in Brazil, in-volving the magazine Veja with the cor-rupt Carlinhos Cachoeira were not met with the same treatment from owners, government intervention, nor by the pub-lic who are not armed with information.This 50th anniversary of the Brazilian Telecommunications Code can make us reflect why issues like this need to be public concerns and open up debates about Brazil’s press and communication, putting them on the same level as hot topics like education and corruption.

Brazilian Telecommunications CodeWhat is it?Sanctioned on August 27, 1962, by President João Goulart, The Brazilian Telecommunications Code is a set of laws that governs the format of the country’s communication system.

How it works?The Code provides articles that monitor and operate the state structures responsible for telecommunication system in Brazil. For example, for a Brazilian television station to be “on air”, it needs to have a public con-cession. According to the law, this award is valid for a period of 15 years and may or may not be renewed. If the channel has not complied with certain requirements set out in the Code, it may have suspended its concession. The last major concessions in Brazil were renewed in 2007, when Globo, Record and Band secured space for another 15 years, tak-ing them to 2022.Content is also covered in the Act, inadequacy or decency of programs and time they are transmitted are supposed to be supervised by a com-petent body.

Proposal to revise this ActThe failure to debate or re-examine democratic regulatory policies, of which the telecommunications code is, are examples of wider short-comings in Brazil. As the Code was established long ago and precedes the principles that the Constitution of 1988 guaranteed, its effectiveness can therefore be questioned. In 2009 representatives of civil society, the business sector and the government gathered at the 1st National Con-ference of Communication, more than 600 proposals were approved, but remain “shelved”.A great example of this is the Regulatory Framework, a set of rules, laws and guidelines governing the operation of public services that recog-nises and confirms the nature of public interest at the media sectors. Though change is dawning as this Framework has now been present-ed to congress. Though according to Agencia Brasil, the Ministry of Communications said that the draft of the regulatory framework (established at the end of Lula’s government), remains “under study” internally. “There are no plans, for the moment, when the [the project] will be placed for public consultation,” said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Communications.

brazil | 04 | September 11th - 24th 2012

IMMIgratIon

Government wants skilled foreigners going to BrazilForeigners with professional skills will be encouraged to go to Brazil with incentives according to the aims of a new working group discussion by The Strategic Affairs Secretariat (SAE) of the Presidency. The group, which will meet monthly un-til November, has representatives from government and institutions like the University of São Paulo (USP) and the Get-ulio Vargas Foundation (FGV), two of the most important educational institutions in Brazil. “Brazil needs skilled labour to advance. We have the challenge of improving our competitiveness and increasing the pro-ductivity of our industrial sector. We have to create an environment of in-novation and we need skilled labour to do that,” said Moreira Franco, Minister of the Secretariat of Strategic Affairs of the Presidency. “The best way to transfer technology and knowledge is by bringing the people behind it. These are attitudes, habits, processes that people coming here can pass on will accelerate the solutions we need,” he added.The secretariat’s data shows that cur-rently only 0.3% of the population con-sists of immigrants a stark contrast to Australia, for example, where that figure is 20%. Even in Canada, 16% of the work-force is made up of immigrants. “In the longer term Education in skilled labour is the best way to transmit this knowl-edge and we need to start resolving this now, at a time when the country has to take a leap in quality to get ahead of oth-

er growing economies. Today we have huge numbers of highly qualified young people, especially in Europe, who are un-employed,” said the minister.Recalling the situations in Portugal and Spain in relation to unemployment, in which in certain age groups more than 40% of the population are out of work. “Portugal and Spain, are similar and have a very favorable cultural environ-ment to Brazil, there is no reason fo us not to work together help and for Bra-zil to offer prospects to those who are trained and looking for jobs,” he said.The minister emphasized that the group will gather information initially about what kind of country the government wants to attract and the best way to do this. “It is not expected that the commis-sion puts forward a policy, but I’m sure, by the excellence of the members that compose it, we have a framework and rigor that once we have finalized who we are looking for we can immediately mobilize policy that meets the needs of country,” he said.According to the Ministry of Labour and Employment, the number of work per-mits granted by the government to peo-ple from outside of Brazil rose by almost 26% in 2011, with about 70,000 new vi-sas. More than half of the temporary permits granted in 2011 were for profes-sionals with college degrees. The number of foreign masters and doctors almost tripled from 584 to 1734. “Perhaps Brazil needs to [grant] 200,000 visas per year.

We are moving, our pro activity means that perhaps we are moving faster than the world supply,” said the secretary of Strategic of SAE, Ricardo Paes de Barros. The estimate of the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs is that more than 2 million le-gal foreigners now count Brazil as their main residence.

FaCeBook

Campaign encourages kick candidates’ easelsThe advertising (often using easels) strat-egies of candidates campaigning to be-come mayor in Brazil have become the butt of a new viral joke. Messages circu-lating through social networking sites ask for users to kick the wooden sup-ports with photos occupying pavements and squares across the country. “Cam-paign kick over an easel too,” says in an image now emblazoned on many Face-book profiles. “Have you kicked an easel today?” “If you already kicked, like. If you want to kick, share,” says another.In just four hours the image of a man kicking an easel that was placed on the Facebook fan page of the punk group Ra-tos de Porão, was shared by 5,193 times, had 925 “likes” and 74 comments. “I kicked a candidate. Course it was an ac-cident...,” wrote one user. “I came back from school destroying everything, I took a giant rock, hurled to the easel, bored, everyone stared at me,” said another.Users of Twitter and Facebook have com-plained that some easels with photos of the candidates for mayor hinder pedes-

trian traffic on pavements and pollute the city. “So many candidates easels on the side walk that we can play 100m hur-dles,” complained one Twitter user.By electoral law, campaigners can put easels on public roads, since they are mobile and do not “hinder the smooth progress of the movement of people and vehicles.” The law says that easels should also be provided on the streets from 6 am and must be removed by 10 pm, it is also forbidden to place any type of election-eering in public parks or on walls, fenc-es and hoardings.A candidate who fails to comply with these rules is notified and has 48 hours to remove advertising and repair any dam-age caused. If the easel or posters remain in forbidden places, candidates may be asked to pay a fine of 2,000 to 8,000 reais, or face court action.Although the campaign to kick an easel has been a hit on the web, in reality, the act of vandalizing or destroying election advertisements is counted as a crime. According to the Electoral Code, the act

of disabling, disrupting or altering ad-vertising that is within the law may be punished with the arrest and up to six

months in prison or the payment of 90 to 120 reais-fine.

only 0.3% of the Brazil’s population consists of immigrants

05

http://hilarious-consequences.blogspot.co.ukhttp://www.steaknightcomics.com/steaknightcomics.com/RRR_BOOKS.html

OMBUDSMANThis is your chance to let the Bra-zilian Post’s team know what you think. Send your feedback and get involved! Send your emails to con-tato@brazilianpost.co.uk

the Brazilian audio-visual industry is now enjoying re-surgence not seen since the so-called recovery of Bra-zilian cinema in the first half of the 1990s. City of god, 2002 was a great success and landmark of how glo-balised and connected the industry was becoming, but we must go further and make London the stage and show new titles, only this can further contribute to the popularization of the seventh art “tupiniquim”.

- Felipe Datt, São Paulo

Community | 06 | September 11th - 24th 2012

Community| 07

ProFILe

Natalia Mayara: making history in London 2012By rômulo Seitenfus

She made history as the first Brazilian athlete to compete in wheelchair tennis in the Paralympics. Natalia Mayara, who is 18 years-old and was a participant of the London Paralympic Games, told us about the accident that changed her fate forever. Hit by a bus when she was just two years-old, Natalia underwent 12 sur-gical operations and had both legs am-putated. In this exclusive interview, she reveals details of her career and cites the impor-tance of parents and coach as her major supporters in life and sport. Natalia al-so explains the meaning of overcoming her disability and recalls the importance of sport in everyday struggles, pointing out the most important moments of her career and describing the honour of to representing Brazil at the London 2012 Games.

You were the first Brazilian woman to play tennis in a wheelchair at the games. What was this like?I remember my first tournament when I played with men: I lost to the weakest one in the tournament. It was my first competition and I was very sad to have lost. I started crying, my mother stayed with me and my coach told me to stop crying because one day I would be win-ning all of my matches. That dream real-ly stuck with me and from there I began improving to win.

Can you tell us a little about your career, from early childhood through london?I was hit by a bus at 2 years old. I was on the side walk, I suffered head trau-ma, had to have both legs amputat-ed and was close to death. I was given just a two per cent chance to live, thank God I recovered, then my parents strug-gled to get my treatment and compensa-tion. Until the age of 15 every year I had to go through surgery to try and fix a bone that was growing and would pierce my skin. Those years were spent constantly moving between Recife to. In the end it was better we moved to Brasilia, I have lived there since the age of eight but it was when I was 12 and visiting my fam-ily in Recife that I met a gentleman who asked if I knew about the Paralympics. He told me more about it and I was re-ally interested and started looking for more information. I started with swim-ming and tennis for two years I practised and competed for two sports. There was no chance to be professional in both so I chose tennis, which is the sport that I most identify with. I travelled a lot and I often gave up going out with friends from school or college because I had to train.

Who are your biggest supporters?My dad always points out the good side

of the sport, my mother is amazing, no matter my worries or worries about what others would think, she is always there to take me in her arms to where to go. My coach, who has always believed and invested in me, he is like my second fa-ther. I learned a lot from him, to go after what I want and the desire to reach the top, he’s always there to help me.

What does sport mean to you?It means the whole dream I’m living today. Sport has given me things I never imag-ined, a chance to travel the world, expe-rience new cultures, to make what a love doing a job and a life. Sport has opened doors and made me much happier.

how do you see your story being an ex-ample to all of us brazilians?What I want is for people to find inspi-ration in my story, and have strength, faith and patience. Everything God does is right and thanks to all the pain that I through before, I’m still here and now living a dream. I always tried to be as strong as I could be. I’ve been through many ups and downs in my life, both in terms of my accident and simply living but I never stopped believing in my own inner ability. I kept my focus on the goal of gaining my independence, and turned round my fate to be everything I could, be a fighter, a winner and I feel I’m getting closer to achieving it all. Use every stone of God’s way as a basis for building a for-tress and never see them as an obstacle.

What does overcoming problems mean to you?It’s my life, because I excelled to recover from the accident, there was only a small chance to live and a lot more to overcome to be totally independent. I have used my willpower to live a life withough legs and to recover from a loss in the family that really shook me up. Today I try to win in the sport of life every day, forever over-coming my limitations and believing that I am capable. This desire to beat all expectations has brought me here to Lon-don now.

What are the most important moments of your career?When I won the Parapanamericano Youth tournament in Colombia, for me it was very striking, I was young and it was the first big tournament I attended. I still remember how it felt to receive the medal and hear the national anthem, it was very exciting.

What do you feel when representing brazil in other countries?I feel pride that I can’t contain inside me, happiness, excitement, all together. I try not to take it as pressure, but as an en-couragement to know that I am repre-senting millions of people, and however

many do not know that I’m there, I’m making history for my country, maybe even that I’ll be remembered for being

the first Junior of Brazil, the first Bra-zilian woman to attend the Paralympic Games.

IDa book: The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud.a song: Charlie Brown Jr. - Days of fighting and glory.a food: Pizza.a restaurant: The fifties. a place to travel: Dubai.a place to return: Australia.a moment to remember: Last year when I was reunited with family in Recife.If you could go back in time, who would choose to hug: My cousin Renan.things that you like: Music.things that you hate: Falsehood, ignorance and prejudice.a fear: Being away from my mother.What attracts you in an interesting person: Affection, truth, humility and sense of humour.an amazing cultural product: The books “A test of love” and “Power beyond life”.a place to be: Recife.the most important achievement: My independence despite the difficulties.A dream fulfilled: Attend to a Paralympic Games.the best gift have you ever gave: Pride to my family.Prefer surprise or be surprised: Surprise.someone we should know: My mother.Family: My life, my base, my support.a beautiful woman: My mother.a handsome man: My father.things you hate: Weakness and bad moods.things you love: My familya dream: Having a prosthesis like the athletes who I’ve met in London, called C-leg.

Foto: by rômulo Seitenfus

08 | September 11th - 24th 2012

2012 Paralympics Games closing ceremony

BY CHRISIANO HOLANDA

cholanda@brazilianpost.co.uk

BRIEFINGS…u.K. industry bounces back A strong rise in industrial output and an official calculation of the boost from the Olympic Games suggested the U.K. economy made a good start to the third quarter and could be emerg-ing from recession.

aRM Chases bigger slice of smaller Chips ARM Holdings, faced intensifying competition from Intel in the mobile market, who are betting that their fo-cus on low-cost, low-energy chips can give them a leading role in the market for a new generation of tiny micro-chips that are the brains inside mil-lions of everyday products.

09

EconomyEnglish Commuters Rue Stronger InflationIt’s not just the Bank of England that may be feeling concerned by the surprise ac-celeration of UK inflation in July–it also means England’s hard-pressed commut-ers are facing larger-than-expected train fare increases next year.Train operators are allowed to increase ticket prices by an average of 3 per cent above the reading of the retail price in-dex, but some fares can be raised by up to 8 per cent above RPI, as long as they are offset against lower increases on oth-er routes. Official data showed the an-nual rate of RPI jumped to 3.2 per cent in July up from 2.8 per cent the previ-ous month due to higher prices for cars, airline fares, housing, and clothing and footwear.Victoria Clarke, an economist at Investec, said:“For consumers still feeling the squeeze as pay growth continues to run behind headline inflation, such a move, that takes away another chunk of spending power, may feel particularly tough.”

Fed up with several years of above-in-flation fare rises, unions and passenger campaign groups have held demonstra-tions at some stations. The Trades Union Congress, the largest trade union group in the U.K., said British rail passengers already pay among the highest fares in Europe.Frances O’Grady, TUC Deputy General Sec-retary, said in a statement:“Passengers are being asked to pay more to get less. We want cuts to rail fares, not rail staff.”The government says the rail fare in-creases are necessary to help fund bil-lions of pounds of investment in the network.Rail Minister Theresa Villiers said:“We are pressing ahead with a massive program of rail improvements to tackle crowding and improve services and rail fares are making an important contri-bution to delivering this at a time when taxpayer funds are limited by the press-ing need to tackle the deficit.”

The governing coalition is far from unit-ed on this issue. The Liberal Democrats, the smaller centrist coalition partner, said the government was right to invest in the railway network, but that costs shouldn’t be passed on to commuters.“People are struggling to make ends meet against a backdrop of wage freez-es and rising utility bills. George Osborne [Chancellor of the Exchequer] has to re-alise that people cannot be expected to pay huge rises in rail fares on top,” said Julian Huppert, co-chair of the party’s transport committee.

Portugal Adds New Austerity MeasuresPrime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho said he would cut public employees’ sala-ries, require that all workers pay more for social security, and raise taxes on the rich—the latest belt-tightening steps aimed at meeting Portugal’s obligations under an international bailout program.Mr. Passos Coelho made the announce-ment on television late on Friday as viewers were absorbed by a World Cup qualifying match between Portugal and

Luxembourg that was to start minutes later. He cast the measures, that will be effective next year, as an attack on the country’s 15 per cent unemployment rate, which has been rising as a result of pre-vious cuts in public spending.Employees will be required to pay 18 per cent of their salaries towards social secu-rity, up from 11 per cent, allowing compa-nies to cut their contributions from 23.75 to 18 per cent. “We will substantially re-

duce the costs of labor, providing incen-tives to investment and job creation,” the Portuguese leader said. This will mean that public workers will lose one pay-check out of the 14 they receive each year. In July, Mr. Passos Coelho was forced to scrap an attempt to cut two months of salary after a court ruled that it discrim-inated against public employees. His speech Friday offered no legal rationale for the more modest cut.

The prime minister said he would hike taxes on profits of big corporations and wealthy individuals but gave no details.A team from the European Union, the In-ternational Monetary Fund and the Euro-pean Central Bank is in Lisbon is to judge compliance with austerity conditions of the €78 billion ($98.9 billion) bailout pro-gram, their €4.3 billion installment is at stake.

Welcome to Barclays, Mr Jenkins, you’re downgradedThe Swiss bank has downgraded Barclays from outperform to neutral, in a note to clients, after concluding that “there is no ‘easy way out’ for Barclays,” due to the “ongoing pressure to de-lever, more significantly restructure and above all shrink some parts of the business”.Yesterday, JP Morgan also downgrad-ed Barclays to neutral, stating that “risk weighted assets within investment banks may be higher than what man-agement currently anticipates requiring further actions to address returns and capital requirements”.Barclays announced the appointment of former retail chief Jenkins as the new head of the bank, stepping into the shoes

vacated by Bob Diamond, who resigned in July after the Libor-rigging scandal broke.According to Credit Suisse, Barclays faces a number of problems, notably the politi-cal and regulatory pressure from smaller, more focused UK banks. Barclays cur-rently has £1.63 trillion in assets, higher than the UK’s annual GDP (£1.5 trillion). A total of £1.23 trillion is housed in Bar-clays’ investment bank.Jenkins has publicly made clear that he aims to achieve a return on equity above the cost of equity. Currently BarclayCard and Barclays Wealth have been consist-ently profitable and earn more than the bank’s cost of equity.Credit Suisse’s analysts run through a

number of options for the Jenkins, in-cluding leaving the bank as it is. Howev-er, the most likely situation is one that will see Barclays’ investment banking unit is “de-levered aggressively and sig-nificant restructuring of other underper-forming units”.This would mean a partial end to the Lehman Brothers adventure. UK bank Barclays bought the collapsed bank’s US operations in 2008. Already established in debt, the acquisition added a strong eq-uities and advisory business, which Bar-clays began to replicate in Europe via a wave of hires.

Massive Mining Deal on RocksThe biggest corporate deal of the year, part of a global scramble to control com-modities, turned into a play for pow-er after a sweetened offer to salvage the merger.Glencore International PLC’s seven-month pursuit of miner Xstrata PLC had attracted the interest not just on Wall Street but in the political world. With the help of some big political guns, an at-tempted rapprochement between Glen-core and current Xstrata investor Qatar Holding LLC ahead of a crucial sharehold-er vote on Friday was made.

10 | September 11th - 24th 2012

sport by Tico Silvério

teaM gB

Paralympics continue where London 2012 left offBy Jamie Jubon

This summer’s Paralympic Games in London continued in the same vein as the Olympic Games a fortnight before. It was another unprecedented success for Team GB. They claimed a total of 120 medals, surpassing the 102 medals they earned four years ago in Beijing. There was one disappointing aspect, however. Prior to this year’s Paralympic Games’ opening ceremony, the chief executive of the BPA (British Paralympic Association), Tim Hollingsworth, had set the Team GB squad a target of finishing second in the medal table. They had been runners-up in the three previous Paralympic Games, so main-taining that success was seen as the minimum aim for this year’s athletes. Despite achieving more medals overall than in Beijing, only 34 gold medals were achieved in London 2012. Compare this to 42 golds in Beijing and it is understand-able why there may be a small sense of disappointment among the GB paralym-

pians in the Olympic village. They also slipped down to third in the medal ta-ble, behind China, who were always ex-pected top the table comfortably, and Russia. The Russian’s surge up the med-al table can be attributed to the fact that they are preparing to host the 2014 Win-ter Games in Sochi and thus have created many professional and full-time athletes in a variety of sports along with Ukraine, who themselves finished fourth. Despite the drop in the standings, there can be no argument that it was anoth-er highly successful games for both the Team GB athletes and Great Britain as a whole. There were already some rela-tively well-known Paralympic athletes in Great Britain before the Games start-ed. David Weir in the athletics, Sarah Storey in the cycling and Eleanor Sim-monds in the swimming were the fac-es of Team GB’s Paralympic squad due to their success in the Beijing Games. All three delivered fantastic results again four years later with stunning perfor-mances in their fields. Weir and Storey

captured four gold medals each, and Sim-monds picked up two golds, as well as seven medals in total.Even more pleasing was the emergence of young, bright British Paralympians who will surely lead Team GB into the next Games in Rio in 2016. The likes of Hannah Cockroft, a gold medalist in the athletics at the age of 20, and Josie Pear-son, a discus Gold medalist, rose to the challenge of competing in a home Olym-pics and, for a few hours, became the

most talked-about athletes in Great Brit-ain. As with the Olympics, all of the Brit-ish gold medallists will have a post-box painted gold in their hometown, in rec-ognition of their achievement. In terms of ticket sales and the inter-est generated by the general public, this year’s Paralympics were also unrivalled. 2.7 million tickets were sold, bringing in an income of £45million, becoming the first Paralympic Games not to be run at a loss. Over to you Brazil.

ParaLYMPICS

Brazil has memorable Games and looks forward Rio 2016Brazil leaves London with a feeling of ‘mission accomplished’. The Brazilian Paralympic delegation has many rea-sons to celebrate their performance at the 2012 Games. In addition to the total of 43 medals (21 golds, 14 silvers and eight bronzes), the record of Brazilian gold medals in Paralympics granted the sev-enth place in the overall medals count, a historical position that reached the tar-get set by the Brazilian Paralympic Com-mittee (CPB ).Among the most memorable moments of the London Games, no doubt, was the figure of Daniel Dias, who won six gold medals in swimming (read more on page 13). The 5-a-side Football’s victory will al-so will be remembered – it was their third consecutive championship. Good surpris-es, like Andre Brasil (six golds in swim-ming) and Lucia Teixeira (judo silver), also deserve mention, besides the good per-formance of athletics: seven gold medals (two from Terezinha Guilhermina).“Our performance was spectacular, even more if we take into account that other countries also recorded massive leaps in performance,” said the president of CPB, Andrew Parsons. And this leap was clear-ly expressed in the distribution of Para-lympic medals. In Beijing four years ago, the concentration of medals in the hands of the major sports powers was much lower than in London. Ukraine, for ex-

ample, earned fourth place with 24 golds, a total that would only seventh place in London.Parsons noted that success increases the responsibility of Brazil has a host for the Rio Paralympic Games. The stated goal in 2009 was to fight for fifth place, which in theory would require Brazil, based on the results of London, at least 32 golds in 2016. The President of CPB said he hoped that the arrival of Paralympics to South America would be a catalyst for invest-ment in sport, especially by the private sector. “I regret that the private sector does not see paralympic sport as an in-vestment opportunity, communicating with the public and association with the image of a Brazil that excels and wins.” Parsons, however, made a point to thank the support received for these games, in-cluding public agencies. All Brazilian Par-alympic medals in London were taken by competitors who from the Athlete Schol-arship program, the Ministry of Sports. In the national delegation of 182 athletes, 156 (85%) were fellows.The CPB has identified priorities in pre-paring for the next Paralympic cycle. Ac-cording to the president, in areas such as swimming, renewal and increased in-vestment in sports such as cycling and weightlifting are at the top of a list that also includes increased exchanges with other nations.

david Weir won four gols medals

sport | 11

HIgHLIgHtS

The best of the Games 1. alan Fonteles vs Oscar PistoriusThe rivalry between Brazil’s Alan Fonteles and South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius in Lon-don 2012 began in the T44 200m’s dispute. In an amazing race, Fonteles took gold, beating the favourite Pistorius, who had not lost in this mode for nine years. In the moments and days after the race, the South African criticized the Brazil-ian’s prostheses, a mark of bitter or un-gracious rivaliry some thought. Though Pistorius smiled again after fighting to get back on track and winning gold in the 4x100m T42-46. In the 100m race, both were beaten to gold by the British Jonnie Peacock and the last race on the divided race track in London, the 400m T44, Os-car Pistorius took gold and Alan Fonteles’ performance seemed subdued, only man-aging to take fourth place.

2. daniel diasUnbeatable. This is the word that defines the participation of Daniel Dias on Para-lympic Games in London. In six individ-ual events in swimming, he won six gold medals. When adding the nine medals

he had won in the Beijing 2008, Daniel Dias became the most successful Brazil-ian paralympic athlete with 15 medals (ten gold, four silver and one bronze) - surpassing the 13 medals of Clodoaldo Sil-va and Ádria Santos.

3. Ellie simmondsCharismatic, humble and persevering, Britain Ellie Simmonds, who is only 17 years old, charmed fans at the London Games. Her presence at the Aquatics Cen-tre was always accompanied by lots of excitement from the stands and in the water, she did not disappoint. Ellie end-ed the Games with four medals: two gold, one silver and one bronze.

4. alex ZanardiFormer Indy-champion and former For-mula 1’s pilot, the Italian Alex Zanardi also made records in London, plaing his name firmly in the history of the Para-lympic Games. Competing with a hand-bike (special bicycle where the impulse is given by hand), won two gold medals: in the category H4 against the clock and

the H4 class road race.

5. Jacqueline FreneySome people consider her a central char-acter of London Paralympic Games. A ti-tle made plausible, since no one will go home with more gold medals in luggage than her, as the Australian won eight gold medals at the Games on swimming.

6. Esther vergeerDutch Tennis player Esther Vergeer won the singles’ title tournament for her fourth consecutive Paralympic Games - having already won gold in Beijing 2008, Athens 2004 and Sydney 2000. With this latest triumph, Vergeer has reached 470 games unbeaten, which has lasted since 2003.

MEDAL COUNT

COUNTRY GOLD SILVER BRONZE TOTAL

1- CHINA 95 71 65 231

2- RUSSIA 36 38 28 102

3- GRAIT BRITAIN 34 43 43 120

4- UKRAINE 32 24 28 84

5- AUSTRALIA 32 23 30 85

7- BRAZIL 21 14 8 43

1 2 6

3 4 5

sport | 12 | September 11th - 24th 2012

FrIendLY

Fans impatient, Brazilian Team without identityThe Brazilian Team’s friendly against South Africa on September 7, at Morum-bi stadium, in Sao Paulo, exposed some unfavorable characteristics of the team coached by Mano Menezes and also the Brazilian fans, particularly from Sao Pau-lo. The poor performance of the team in the match, who only managed to win thanks to a goal in the final part of the second half by Hulk, left the audience in the stands impatient, and boos rang out across the stadium for nearly the entire game.The team included players who had not competed in the London Olympic Games (Daniel Alves, Ramires and David Luiz), and three key players in attack (Oscar, Neymar and Leandro Damiao). Yet the team followed no set pattern, showed no intense drive to find gaps in the opposi-tion’s defense and instead looked to be betting on sporadic individual plays from a Neymar to pull off the game.In the stands, patience rapidly ran thin with crowds shouting “Goodbye, Mano” and critics of Neymar turning the sta-dium into a cauldron ready to explode. Supporters of Corinthians, Palmeiras and Sao Paulo booed Neymar, who plays in Santos. Fans of Sao Paulo, in particular, shouted the name of Luis Fabiano (Sao Paulo’s player) in retaliation for Leandro Damiao. “We know we have not played a very good match, but we won. That was our goal. The boos happen, we had plenty Palmeiras, Corinthians and São Paulo fans in the crowd. They have to support the national team,” Neymar said after the game. The coach Mano Menezes said, in a tone of lamentation: “We played at

the home of Sao Paulo, with most of its supporters. But there is no need to hate others so much. Anyone who tries to build something, suffers, we are trying to build some positive feeling for everyone..”Old fashioned rivaliries aside, it is clear that the Brazil team, more than two years after the arrival of Mano Menezes,

has not yet found an identity on the field and thus with the fans. On the eve of the World Cup at home, the squad walks with uncertainty and are not even close to the Spanish or Argentina teams. The behavior and anger expressed by the fans in the stands was proof of distrust with the team and also evident hypocrisy

– when Neymar plays well, he is Brazil; playing poorly, he is a disposable player of the rival team.The Brazilian team returned to the field on Monday, September 10, to follow the team’s performance against China and the reaction of the fans in Recife, visit www.brazilianpost.co.uk.

FootBaLL’S Market

€ 170 million’s quartetAlthough at the moment Brazil’s Team faces uncertainty, the European market transfers proved that the current gener-ation is more promising than one might imagine according to figures from high-est negotiations of the season 2012/2013, sealed in early September after closing the window in Russia. Among the seven major transactions there are four Brazil-ians: Hulk, Thiago Silva, Lucas and Oscar, not bad when you think that there is still be room for Neymar, Leandro Damiao.The players, all summoned with regular-ity, are responsible for breaking the re-cord of 2008/2009, when the transfers of Robinho, Daniel Alves, Ronaldinho and Jô totaled €127.5 million. The current quar-tet earned € 169 million, nearly half of the top-10 (£ 963 million), which also in-cluded Eden Hazard, Javi Martínez, Ax-

el Witsel, Robin Van Persie, Luka Modric and Ezequiel Lavezzi. In 2011/2012, for ex-ample, the most expensive Brazilian was Danilo, ex-Santos player acquired by Por-to for €13 million, this year, according to Fifa, Hulk left Porto to move to Zenit St. Petersburg for €55 million.With the aid of Chelsea and Manchester City, the Premier League has been the key drivers in the market. In total, €624.1 million was dropped by English clubs for dozens of foreign reinforcements, while the second place went to Italy, still a way behind, spending €380.1 million. The ta-ble is reversed when it comes to those who earned more in sales, Italy received € 392.4 million against € 301.1 million in England highlighting questions of sus-tainability in English football.

Brazilian football team under boos

Hulk (Zenit), thiago Silva (PSg), Lucas (PSg) and oscar (Chelsea)

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