The Brazilian equestrian team got the gold medal in the Pan American Games and ensured their place in the 2008 Olympics on Saturday.
The Brazilian equestrians overcame difficulties like the court battle waged by other athletes to claim their place on the roster for the Games.
"When we said that we could come and win, people had to believe us," said equestrian Rodrigo Pessoa, holder of a gold medal in the individual jumping at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
The "people" Pessoa was referring to were equestrians Vitor Teixeira and Luis Azevedo, who sued the Brazilian Equestrianism Confederation (CBH) to try to enter the national team.
Originally, CBH was supposed to draft the three best ranked in a selected tournament, in which Teixeira and Azevedo had ranked second and third, respectively. But the entity made use of other criteria, such as the athlete's position in the world ranking, to form the roster, which Teixeira and Azevedo regarded as "subjective".
They got a court injunction to ensure their places in the team, but, with one week to the beginning of the event, CBH got to keep its right to choose the athletes according to the criteria they established.
The team that won the gold medal on Friday only relied on one equestrian that had competed for the position in the national team, Cesar Almeida. Pessoa and Bernardo Rezende were pre-qualified to the Games, and Pedro Veniss and Karina Johannpeter were drafted by the head of the team according to the Confederation's requirements.
And that seemed to have worked out.
"That is our response. We got what we wanted, the Olympic classification," stressed Pessoa, who added that the events that preceded the Games really confused the preparations for the competition.
"Everyone suffered with what happened. The important thing is to learn lessons so that such mistakes will not repeat next year," said the equestrian about the Beijing Games.
Brazil's equestrianism is marked by a separation between two groups: the "Brazilians" and the "Europeans".
Pessoa, Rezende and Veniss practice with coach Nelson. Pessoa's training center in Belgium, where they live. The others, who live and practice in Brazil, claim that all athletes should go through a tournament to be in the roster for international competitions, which is not supported by CBH.
According to the head of the national team, Lucia Santa Cruz, the level of the equestrian events in Europe is much higher, and learning from the "Swiss, French and German masters" shapes up the Brazilian riders.
Source: Xinhua
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