Sports
Ricardo Prado on CBDA Leadership and Grassroots Bottlenecks
The Olympic medalist highlights top-heavy funding, youth transition bottlenecks, and political hurdles in Brazilian swimming.
In an interview with Natação Stemma, Olympic medalist Ricardo Prado evaluates CBDA governance, the funding divide between elite veterans and youth athletes, and the evolving role of training clubs.
Drawing from his experience on the Olympic podium and inside the front office of the CBDA, Ricardo Prado offers a pragmatic take on the state of Brazilian swimming. In his view, the sport does not suffer from a lack of funding or technical expertise, but rather from structural governance hurdles, political maneuvering, and an uneven distribution of resources between elite competitors and grassroots programs.
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Management overhaul and the federative model
Prado believes the Brazilian Confederation of Aquatic Sports (CBDA) would benefit greatly from bringing in outside executive leadership empowered to drive sweeping cultural change. While acknowledging the technical caliber of local coaches and administrators, he emphasizes that the existing model remains encumbered by legacy ties and the political sway of 24 state federations, where the majority of votes do not necessarily reflect high-performance hubs.
This governance dynamic, driven by political blocs and localized interests, complicates the establishment of policies focused purely on athletic excellence. The former swimmer notes that although the knowledge of what needs to be done exists internally, real execution is frequently stalled by inertia or a lack of strategic alignment.
Top-heavy funding vs. youth transition
One of Prado's sharpest critiques centers on the disproportionate support directed toward elite athletes compared to developmental categories. Since the 2016 Olympic cycle, top swimmers and coaches have enjoyed international travel, high-altitude training camps, and substantial financial backing from the Brazilian Olympic Committee and leading clubs. Yet this concentration of resources at the top has not translated into a corresponding rise in Olympic medals.
The core issue, according to Prado, lies in the bottleneck between junior and senior divisions. With funding heavily concentrated on established adult athletes, 18- and 19-year-olds struggle to overcome seasoned veterans and secure spots on the national squad. Prado advocates for redirecting significant funding and attention toward the youth and junior tiers to encourage organic succession while demanding accountability commensurate with elite-level support.
Club closures and competing for talent
Beyond national governance, Brazilian swimming faces the decline of traditional developmental hubs. In non-metropolitan areas across states like São Paulo, numerous sports clubs have shuttered their competitive teams or closed entirely, concentrating the sport within a handful of major clubs in the state capital.
This shrinking footprint diminishes the sport's reach at a time when swimming faces stiff competition for youth interest from soccer and burgeoning urban sports like skateboarding. For Prado, swimming must recognize this rivalry and adapt to maintain its appeal to younger generations, which includes embracing faster, more dynamic formats like 50-meter sprints across all strokes.
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