The Famous Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro

Copacabana Beach is one of the most famous tourist spots in Rio de Janeiro, partly due to the sculpted bodies that crowd it every day, demonstrating its close relationship with sports, especially beach volleyball, which will have its home in these sands during the Olympic Games.

Along its more than four kilometers of extension, numerous sports facilities can be found to exercise the muscles, goals where one can barely play a decaffeinated soccer due to the undulation of the terrain, and of course, nets to practice one of Brazil's most emblematic sports: beach volleyball.

"I think it is excellent to play here, with this beach atmosphere, with the sea breeze, and so many people exercising," said Fabio, a young engineer who lives in this upper-middle-class neighborhood and who, he commented, started practicing this sport only a few months ago.

This sensual sport and the name Copacabana have been intertwined for decades in the popular imagination, not only in Brazil but throughout the world.

However, contrary to what almost everyone thinks, Beach Volleyball did not originate in Brazil, but rather much further north, on the warm coast of the city of Santa Monica, in the sunny state of California.

It was there, in the twenties, where the children of the wealthy families who lived there found in this kind of volleyball a fun way to pass the time during the long summer days.

It took over sixty years for this sport, in which two pairs face each other separated by a net, to obtain definitive recognition, when the first Beach Volleyball World Championship authorized by the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) took place in 1987.

It is at that moment when the quintessential beach sport and the Marvelous City established strong ties that still unite them today. It was also at that moment when the great sporting rivalry between the United States and Brazil, the two powers that clearly dominate this sport, became official.

This rivalry was reflected in the 1996 Atlanta Games, the first in which beach volleyball became an Olympic sport, since while the Brazilian pair formed by Jackie Silva and Sandra Pires became champions in the women's draw, the American duo composed of Karch Kiraly and Kent Steffes did the same in the men's.

The Home of Beach Volleyball in Copacabana

The first major contact in the eighties between beach volleyball and the Carioca sands took place on the neighboring Ipanema Beach.

For years, however, the home of beach volleyball has been in Copacabana; a bond that will reach its moment of greatest splendor starting on Saturday when the arena installed there for the Rio 2016 Games will host up to 12,000 attendees each day to witness some of the 68 matches that will be played during the Olympic Games.

The Olympic court is currently the main volleyball court on Copacabana's sands, but it is not the only one by any means. Hundreds of posts along the entire beach invite you to set up a net to play a game with friends.

"Forty years ago, the city council installed some poles and chose those responsible, and now it is their children who coordinate the new courts," commented Carolina, a young lawyer from Rio who, during weekends, takes charge of directing one of these informal courts.

This Saturday, Carolina will attend the debut of the Brazilian duo, composed of Agatha Bednarczuk and Barbara Seixas, who will face the Czechs Marketa Slukova and Barbora Hermannova in the Olympic Arena, to "cheer for Brazil," hoping that this country achieves one of the most coveted medals by the local audience in their Games.

With the presence of Talita Antunes and Larissa França as main references in the women's draw, and Bruno Schmidt and Alison Cerutti in the men's, Brazilians dream of a gold medal that would surely be as memorable as the one achieved by Silva and Pires twenty years ago.