Some members of the Chinese delegation during the 2012 London summer Olympic Games. (Photo : Getty Images)
Recent reports have emerged that national teams from China have chosen to make Sao Paulo, Brazil's celebrated Esporte Clube Pinheiros training facility as the delegation's pre-Olympics training base beginning July of this year until the start of the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics.
Xinhuanet reported that the Asian giant's competitors "will use the club in Brazil's most populous city to train and acclimatize ahead of the August 5-21 Games" after 18 months of meticulous consultations between China's sports officials and the venue's executives.
Esporte Club Pinheiros, situated in a 170,000 square meter land area in the high-profile neighborhood of Jardim Europa, is a much-respected multi-sports and social club founded in 1899 by German immigrants to the said region.
The report mentioned that the club houses world-class facilities for 15 sports disciplines, namely "table tennis, artistic gymnastics, swimming, badminton, football, tennis, rugby, water polo, volleyball, fencing, boxing, athletics, synchronized swimming, modern pentathlon, and taekwondo".
The entire Chinese contingent is said to be around 350 people, as per China.org, all in all "including athletes, coaches, officials and conditioning staff" and is expected to be one of the biggest delegations in the coming summer Olympic Games.
China has the fourth largest group during the 2012 London Games with 396 people. Great Britain, the United States, and Russia were the top three during that time.
China is also the second winningest country in 2012 with 88 medals, including 38 golds. The mighty United States unsurprisingly finished the Games on top with 103 medals, gaining 46 golds.
Meanwhile, local newspapers have confirmed that the said training facility will be "at the disposition of China between July 22 and August 15" while the Olympics is scheduled from August 5 to 21.
The clubs will establish a formal schedule as to when the facilities will be exclusively used by Chinese athletes while the 38,000 members of the Pinheiros will still be able to use the said facility during that time period.
