Juliana Vieira Sets a Mark for Brazil

Text by BWF

Twenty-year-old Juliana Viana Vieira became the first women’s singles player from Brazil to win a match at the Olympics.

Vieira had been impressive in her first match as well, in a losing cause to Supanida Katethong, but on Monday she was far more assured in a straight-games result over Hong Kong China’s Lo Sin Yan Happy, 21-19 21-14.

Brazil have had two women’s singles representatives at past Olympics – Lohaynny Vicente at Rio 2016 and Fabiana Silva at Tokyo 2020.

Vieira, who was a ballet dancer in her early childhood before she fell in love with badminton, was elated that she had achieved the breakthrough.

“I’m super happy, it’s amazing to come away with a win in my first Olympics,” Vieira said. “It’s an amazing experience for me. I’m happy with my performance. Of course against Thailand it was my first game and I was nervous but it was okay. In this one I was confident that I could make history as the first Brazil woman to win a match at the Olympics, so that’s amazing too. So I’m really emotional right now.”

Ironically, Vieira had missed watching the Olympics on her home soil eight years ago as she was training in Spain at the time. After her four-year stint in Spain, she returned to Brazil and joined the national centre.

“I improved a lot when I was in Spain, but by the time I turned 16, I had achieved my limit and then I went back to Brazil,” said Vieira.

Arriving in Paris, she found herself fortunate to be invited to train with Carolina Marin for four days at the national centre INSEP. “It was hard but I’m happy, and I enjoyed myself,” says Vieira.

What attracted her to badminton over ballet?

“The moment I started with badminton I fell in love. That’s my inspiration. Badminton is not strong in Brazil because we are a big country and the popular sports are football and volleyball but badminton is growing.”

Meanwhile, in the men’s doubles Group of Death (Group D), Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen powered past Liu Yu Chen/Ou Xuan Yi 21-15 21-13 to restore momentum in their campaign after falling to Olympic champions Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin on Sunday.

The closest match of the session featured world champions Seo Seung Jae/Chae Yu Jung against Dechapol Puavaranukroh/Sapsiree Taerattanachai for top placing in Group B. The Koreans outplayed the Thais in a high-paced entertaining battle, 21-16 10-21 21-15.