Brazil at the 2012 Summer Olympics

Brazil competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, from 27 July to 12 August 2012. This was the nation's twenty-first appearance at the Summer Olympics, having missed the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. The Brazilian Olympic Committee (, ''COB'') sent a total of 258 athletes to the Games, 136 men and 122 women, to compete in 24 sports. Brazil left London with a total of 17 Olympic medals (3 gold, 5 silver, and 9 bronze), winning their third largest number of medals at a single games.

Brazilian athletes won its first ever medals in two sports: modern pentathlon, with the bronze medal won by Yane Marques in women's event, and in gymnastics, with the gold medal achieved by Arthur Zanetti in men's rings.

Summary

The good result of the Brazilian performance was packed by the expressive results of the judo team during the first days of the Games.
The first gold medal come with the judoka Sarah Menezes, in women's 48 kg category, Menezes was the first Brazilian woman judoka to turn an Olympic champion Beijing, she had competed at the age of 18 and, inexperienced, was defeated in the first fight. The evolution in the cycle that followed was extraordinary. Sarah came to England at the height of physical, technical and psychological forms. And the result was the gold medal, with victory in the decision, over Romanian Alina Dumitru, who had been the champion in Beijing. Sarah, who won the first gold in Brazil in 2012 Summer Olympics, became the country's first judoka woman to triumph in an Olympics and was also the first gold medal in judo in 20 years, since the last to have won in the competition had been Rogério Sampaio. The other 3 medals in judo were bronze: Felipe Kitadai in men's 60 kg, Mayra Aguiar in women's 78 kg and Rafael Silva in men's +100 kg.

In the second week of the Games, another unprecedented event happened when the gymnast Arthur Zanetti made history again by conquering the gold medal in men's rings. Arthur Zanetti had already shown his potential in the 2011 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships when he won the silver medal. After being 4th place in the qualification to the rings final, with a score of 15.616, he won the gold medal in this event, with a score of 15.900. He was the first gymnast from Latin America to win an Olympic medal and also the first from the southern hemisphere.

On the penultimate day of the Games, Team Brasil won its third gold medal, the only collective sport in this edition. women's volleyball competition, the incumbent Olympic champion Brazil women's national volleyball team repeated the result obtained in Beijing four years early. But, this campaign is marked by impacting tense twists On the first game against the Turkish team there was the first scare, the team almost lost the game in the fifth set. The second shock followed with the defeat to the United States in an unlit game. In the sequence a painful game happened when an unpredictable defeat happened for the South Korea With the combination of results so far, the team was facing a traumatic elimination, having to win at any cost the next two games (China. and Serbia.) and hoped for another combination of results in which the United States would have to win their last two games (South Korea and Turkey), which ended up happening. The upshot of this campaign of ups and downs was a dramatic quarter-final clash against Russia This game is considered one of the greatest volleyball games of all times, in a fierce rivalry over previous clashes in recent years, such as the semi-finals of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, the 2006 FIVB Women's Volleyball World Championship and the 2010 FIVB Women's Volleyball World Championship in all these games, Brazil ended up losing to Russia in the fifth set by extremely tight scores. This game followed the script of the previous decisive games, but with a twist, Brazil managed to reverse six match points throughout the game. However, in the fifth set, after several physical and mental tests, the team managed to win the game on the limit score of 21 to 19.

In the semi-finals, the team performance turned, at the normal and a respectful win against Japan by 3 to 0. Thus, the team managed to reach its second consecutive final against another great rival, the United States. This second game between the two teams in these games was a reissue of the final held 4 years earlier in Beijing. But this time, the story had everything to be different, since the United States was the favorite. After a harsh defeat of the US in the first set (25–11), Brazil won easily the next three sets (25–17, 25–20 and 25–17) and the team winning a second gold medal. Half of team was consecrated, since they were remnants of the team that four years earlier was also an Olympic champion: Fabiana Claudino, Fabiana de Oliveira, Paula Pequeno, Jaqueline Carvalho, Sheilla Castro and Thaísa Menezes made history to be the first Brazilian women to become two-time Olympic champions. The coach José Roberto Guimarães also wrote his name in history as the first three-time Olympic volleyball champion (male or female).

The Brazil men's national volleyball team was silver medalist of the tournament, losing the gold medal in a dramatic match by 3 to 2 to Russia. Brazilian won the first two sets, and had two gold medal match points, but led by Dmitriy Muserskiy the Russians won the next 3 sets and conquered the gold medal. In the beach volleyball two medals were conquered. Alison Cerutti and Emanuel Rego went to the gold dispute against the Germans Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann and fought a balanced duel that, to the sadness of the Brazilian fans, ended with a tight victory of the rivals by 2 to 1 (23/21, 16/21 and 16/14) in the Men's beach volleyball . In the women's beach volleyball a bronze medal was obtained by Juliana Felisberta and Larissa França.

In the football men's tournament, the Brazil national under-23 football team led by Neymar advanced as favorite to the final against Mexico, after 5 victories in 5 matches. But a fast goal from Mexican Oribe Peralta with only 29 seconds into the first half, destabilized the Brazilian players. In the second half of the match, Peralta scored again within 74 minutes. Brazil still scored a goal in the 91 minutes, but there was no time for the tie and the match ended in 2 to 1.

In the pools of the 2012 Summer Olympics, two medals were obtained. Thiago Pereira finally won an Olympic medal in the Men's 400 m individual medley with a South American record of 4:08.86, an event where Michael Phelps was in the fourth place.César Cielo the incumbent Olympic and World Champion was the bronze medal of the Men's 50 m freestyle.

In the boxing, Brazil won medals for the first time after 44 years since the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. In the debut of the women competition in boxing, Adriana Araujo had the honor of being the first Brazilian woman to win a medal in boxing, a bronze in the Women's lightweight . She also won the 100th medal of Brazil at the Olympics. Esquiva Falcão was the silver medalist in men's middleweight after losing to the Japanese Ryota Murata by 14 to 13. Esquiva's brother Yamaguchi Falcão

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