Neighborhood help and mall tournament: Fabi revisits volleyball backgrounds to get to the Hall of Fame

Two-time Olympic champion and new Hall of Famer, Fabi Alvim began her volleyball career at the age of 12, playing on a condominium court in Irajá.

After standing out at Flamengo, the athlete migrated to the position of libero in 1998, a position that shaped her victorious career and her vision of life.

From a condominium in Irajá, a neighborhood cut by Avenida Brasil, in Rio, came the largest libero the world has seen. Of the set of more than 30 four-story buildings, in which the part with three-bedroom apartments is called the "south zone" and those with two "north zone", Fabiana Alvim de Oliveira played volleyball for the first time in her life. Under the eyes of her mother, Vera, the 12-year-old girl ventured into the cement court, surrounded by bars, which was the meeting point of the sports class. She was the only girl among a group of young people, older, who used to practice the sport there. Next door, he played soccer.

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“My father worked all day, he was a taxi driver. My mother was a manicurist, she worked at home. I really liked the street, I really liked being here on this court - recalls Fabi, two-time Olympic champion and new member of the Volleyball Hall of Fame, awarded in a ceremony this Saturday in Holyoke, United States.“ In fact, it was just my mother craning her neck from the apartment and seeing that I was on the court. This place (Irajá) is very familiar to me. He was very fond of the ball, and volleyball, after the 1992 Olympics, was a boom. There was no girl here, I sat in the bleachers. Eventually my turn to play would come, "adds the former resident of apartment 301 of block 30.

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At first, I was just watching and scoring on Irajá's court. Until the day Marcelo da Silva, his former neighbor who still lives in the condominium, now a 59-year-old civil engineer, gave it his first chance.

- She, 11, 12 years old, no one wanted to play with her. I said: Fabi will play with me. I'd leave the rest to draw lots between them, and she'd play with me. We played doubles here - says Marcelo Negão, because of the 12 Marcelos in the volleyball group - When I saw Fabi playing on TV, covering, defending the ball with her feet, I said: That's Irajá - he says, who played at Tijuca at the time.

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From playing on the court of Parque Novo de Irajá to the Grêmio Recreativo de Vista Alegre, a neighboring neighborhood, it was a leap. At the club, she was signed up to play a quartet tournament in the parking lot of a mall in Madureira.

- We had a championship at the mall. And I beeped the men's tournament there. When I arrived Monday, she had played a women's adult tournament over the weekend. Then the people said: Gee, there was a young girl who threw it among the adults and broke it. And then I went after her teacher. I worked here at the Flamengo base - says coach Marcos Redivo, who took Fabi to the kid's club at Gávea. - I made an appointment with her teacher to come and take a test here at Flamengo. At the same time, it was approved. When she arrived, oddly enough, she was central. That whole height was central, but she jumped a lot, had attack skill and then started her life playing central. Then he made the transitions through the positions until he reached the position of libero.

At that time, there was still no libero position, created in 1998, when Fabi was 18 years old. On the day of the child test (under-14 athletes) at Flamengo, Harry Bollmann commanded the women's training - he was the physical trainer of the team, but took on another role with the absence of the then coach for personal reasons. Fabi, at the end of the practice, jumped next to the net and touched the top of the antenna, something that no girl in that group did. Today Sesc-Flamengo supervisor, Harry, at the same time, told Fabi to settle his bond with the club.

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