New training center based in a Rio favela brings opportunity back to children in deprived area

Seven-year-old Noahn Leitier threw a ball over the net excitedly as he tried volleyball for the first time at a new training center in a Rio de Janeiro favela.

The facility is part of international volleyball chief Ary Graca's ambitious plans to make the sport the most popular in the world by reaching out to poor and deprived communities.

At the center, squeezed among tightly-packed slums up a steep hillside, more than 50 boys and girls ranging from seven to 15 took part in the first session.

"There is a lot of talent here but they don't have any opportunities. It is our obligation to give opportunities all over the world," Graca, a Brazilian former player said.

Rio is volleyball's spiritual home. The Rio Olympics beach volleyball takes place on the iconic Copacabana sands while the indoor version will be held at the Maracanazinho "Little Maracana" arena.

The new volleyball clinic that Graca officially launched is in Formiga, a favela in the Tijuca area, 15 kilometers away from Copacabana.

It has previously held football lessons, popular in soccer-mad Brazil, but will now hold volleyball classes up to five times a week.

Brazil's national volleyball federation and FIVB, which is providing funding up until 2020, hope the project will help the deprived neighborhood.

"People here are very, very poor but they have good feelings about sport," Marcos Aurelio Goncalves, Brazil's volleyball development manager, told AFP.

"The facility is unique here and brings so much hope. When people here about it they ask questions and they get excited about it," he added.

In between honing their volleyball skills the children, wearing bright yellow and orange T-shirts, danced to music while some played drums. At one point a local police officer joined in a volleyball game.

"He's usually very shy so it's so nice to see my son enjoying himself here and getting involved," said Noahn's mother Gloria Leitier.

"It's the only space like it in the area," she added.

'Beautiful' Copacabana

The FIVB's Graca believes volleyball is going through its most illustrious chapter in its history, boosted by the beach version becoming an official Olympic discipline in 1996.

"In beach volleyball for Beijing (2008) we had 31 countries trying to qualify, in London (2012) there were 143, now for Brazil we have 176. That's almost the whole world playing beach volleyball!" he beamed.

"No other sport in the world, not even football has that number of countries participating (in qualification)," he claimed.

Graca says beach volleyball is popular because "it's beautiful, it's charming, but it's also cheap" and is convinced it's only going to get more popular.

He likes to joke that volleyball is already the most popular sport in Brazil because football "is a religion" and is purring at the thought of the Copacabana as an Olympic stage.

"We are in a golden era. London was a success and now we're in Brazil. It's going to be one of the best (editions) at an iconic place.

"It's a beautiful arena that the whole world is going to see," he added.

Graca says the FIVB wants to grow the game in Africa and South Asia next but there's no clearly limit to his ambitions.

"I'm quite sure that in no more than three or four years volleyball will be a must across the world," he enthused.

Agence France-Presse