That's what the sports section of Folha de Sao Paulo announced on August 30, after the men's volleyball team had defeated Italy 3 sets to 1 in the Athens Olympic Games.
This victory brought the total medal count of the Brazilian delegation to 4 golds. Never in history had the country amassed such a number of golden medals in a single Olympic event. Hence the excitement shown by Folha and shared by millions of Brazilians across the nation.
The achievement
All in all, the Brazilians harvested 4 gold, 3 silver and 3 bronze medals for a total of 10 podiums. Although this actually came as a numeric loss (compared to 12 in Sydney 2000 and 15 in Atlanta 1996) people preferred to herald the fact that never in history had the country that the country seen that many golden medals in an Olympic competition.
So, does this mean that we had the "Best Brazil" as proclaimed by Folha, the largest newspaper in the country?
Certainly, the Brazilian performance is remarkable. They ended in the eighteenth place of the medal tally, even ahead of such nations as Sweden and Canada. But, overall, the results have to be more carefully measured.
First of all, consider the lack of medals in women's Basketball and women's Volleyball. After losing the bronze to Russia and Cuba, respectively, this is the first time in almost a decade that the country does not harvest a medal in those sports.
Indeed, pessimists like to point out that, ever since the Atlanta games, the country has slipped a position in women's Basketball (silver in 1996; bronze in 2000 and fourth-place in Athens).
Consider swimming as well. This is the first time since Barcelona 1992 that no single Brazilian makes a medal in the pool. And then there is Athletics: the Brazilian 4 x 100 men's relay ended eight after being second in Sydney 2000.
Brazil is a powerful sporting nation; indeed it is the region's giant in South America. With 10 medals, Athens was certainly a cause for rejoice, but they should also give way to a deep introspection if those victories are ever to be repeated and consolidated in the future.
Latin America rises
Brazil's victories came at a time when Latin America (with the exception of Mexico) offered an unparalleled Olympics. Argentina's men defeated the mighty American (NBA) team and them did the same to Italy to achieve a now legendary gold in Basketball. A second gold for the Argentines came in soccer, plus four more bronze medals. (Indeed, after the Argentine women took bronze in field hockey, almost a third of the delegation came back home with a medal, according to an estimate. See Folha de Sao Paulo, 29 August).
And then there was the epic of Chilean tennis, where Nicolás Massu gave the country its two ever gold medals and almost became a saint after an exhausting match against the American Mardy Fish.
So Athens represented to Latin America a major turning point in sports. Not only did the Brazilians rose to the top of the podiums in four occasions, but the Argentines ended a drought of half a century without a gold medal and two other Latin American nations, Chile and República Dominicana, entedred for the first time in history in Olympic medal tallies. If we add Felix Sánchez's 400 m hurdles victory, the region captured a total of 9 golds.
We certainly wish that this marks the rennaissance of Latin American sports, but clearly the region has many obstacles to surmount. Just a have an idea of the huge challenges that lie ahead, just consider the fact that Cuba, a small island nation in the Caribbean, equaled the number of gold (9) of all of her Latin American pairs taken together.
