From the first contact with water in the pools, to paddling along the Rio dos Sinos, the students participating in the Canoagem na Escola Project, in São Leopoldo, have an alternative for the future in sports.
“If today they are well on their way in life, with some traveling the world, it was because of the incentive that canoeing gave and the values developed there”, said the project coordinator, since 2006, professor Daniela Maioli. “Whenever one of them comes back here, they reinforce that if they are on the right track, it is thanks to canoeing that opened horizons”.
Ewerthon Alecsander Alves da Silva, 20, was 10 when he joined the project. EMEF student Maria da Silva Schmidt, located in the Rio dos Sinos neighborhood, in the northeast region, needed little time to discover that that after-school activity would point the direction of her professional life.
At the age of 17, Ewerthon was a medalist in the Brazilian Interclub Championship of Canoeing Speed and Paracanoeing, in Brasília. She brought 1 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze medal in her luggage. “I remember that my first medal in competitions was in a championship in Caxias do Sul, in 2012”, says the university student. Today he is studying Physical Education at Unisinos, through Prouni, and works on the Canoagem project helping to train future athletes.
History of Canoeing in São Leopoldo
Developed by the Municipality of São Leopoldo, through the Municipal Department of Education (Smed), the Canoeing at School Project serves students from the public school system. The project emerged in the second half of 2005, with the aim of filling the free time of children and adolescents who bathed in the river. From 2006, Daniela took over the coordination and gave the character of a canoeing school. The condition to continue paddling in the project was to maintain good grades and good behavior.
From 2008, the project started participating in competitions within the state. In 2009, training intensified and, in the following year, they played their first national championship. To regulate the team in competitions, the Leopoldense Association of Ecology and Canoeing (Aleca) was created in 2011.
Currently, the team of teachers and coordination is made up of eight people who help with training in and out of the water. The Canoagem project serves 170 students from the municipal network, with activities from Monday to Thursday, in the morning and afternoon shifts, after school hours. Already Aleca, has five athletes, plus 12 students in the base category.
During the project, athletes train two days a week. After joining Aleca, they train five days a week. This year the athletes are preparing for three competitions at the national level: two Copa Brasil and one Campeonato Brasileiro. The competitions start in April, when Aleca’s canoeing team travels to the Copa Brasil de Canoagem Speed in Capitólio (MG).
The pandemic also affected the team, “it hurt a lot of people, everything closed and the athletes had to do other things. Little by little, we are resuming the team that this year will start competing at Rio Grande do Sul level so that in 2024 they will go to the Brazilian championship”, says the coordinator.
Smed annually invests more than R$ 300,000 in canoeing, including payroll, transport to competitions, rental of the training house, among other things.
Canoeing in Municipal School Games
In 2022, Canoeing debuted at the São Leopoldo Municipal School Games (JEM). For the first time, canoeing was included as a competitive modality, involving 128 children and adolescents. The tests took place in November, on Rua da Praia, with the participation of students from 15 schools, including municipal and state schools.
