Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, February 5, 2015 – Former FIVB Beach Volleyball world champion Guilherme Marques has been using his experience to help shape the development of the volleyball and beach volleyball tournaments at the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games.
The Brazilian is one of the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games Organising Committee’s Sport Competition Coordinators and is currently explaining how the plans are developing over a two-day conference with the Sports Events Council on Thursday and Friday..
“For the last five years I had worked as a representative of imported sports equipment,” Marques said. “On the day of Rio winning the Games, I did not think that I would be so affected by that moment as I was one and half years later when I joined the Committee.
“The ones working or involved in sport and health in anyway really felt the effects of the Olympic bid victory.”
Marques won the 1997 World Championships alongside Rogerio ‘Para’ de Souza, but narrowly missed out on the Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
He watched Sydney in the commentator’s booth while working as a television analyst and then retired before the Athens 2004 Olympics, when Emanuel Rego and Ricardo Santos became the only Brazilian team to win gold.
“I watched the Atlanta 1996 Games as a spectator sitting on the bleachers,” he added. “It was a milestone for my sport. In 1996 I had already been playing as a professional for four years and every beach volleyball player had been waiting for those Games for a long time.”