04/08/2012
OLYM - Varejao living the Olympic dream
LONDON (Olympics) - After suffering an agonizing one-point defeat at the hands of Russia on Thursday, Brazil bounced back in the best possible way on Saturday by trouncing China 98-59.
The result saw the South Americans improve to 3-1 in Group B, allowing them to punch their ticket for the Quarter-Final stages in this, their first Olympic appearance since 1996.
A vital part of Brazil's success in recent years has been Anderson Varejao. The 2.11m big man first broke onto the world stage for his country at the 2002 FIBA World Championship and playing at the Olympics has been a dream of his ever since.
Now the dream has turned into reality and the 29-year-old is enjoying every moment of the experience in London.
Following his team's comfortable defeat of China, Varejao took time out to talk to FIBA.com
FIBA: Anderson, congratulations on the win. Can you talk about the mindset you had for today's game?
Varejao: It's great. It was a good game, it wasn't an easy game. We made it look like it was easy because we played hard from the beginning. We played very aggressively on defense and we held Yi Jianlian to four or five points something like that and he's averaging almost 20 points a game. I believe our defense was the difference today.
FIBA: With the win you can look ahead to the Quarter-Finals.
Varejao: It feels great but we still have to think about the next game which is against Spain. We know it's an important game for us. We're going to have to see what we're going to do to play against them. And then we're going to start thinking about the Quarter-Finals, which is great. It feels good to know that we're going to the Quarter-Finals and try to fight for a medal.
FIBA: It's been a long time since Brazil last played in the Olympics. What has your experience been like so far?
Varejao: It's a great feeling not just being here but being here representing your country. For us we know what happened before and that's why it's been 16 years - we always had injury problems in all of the pre-Olympics. So now we're here and we have a chance to fight for a medal which makes it even better.
FIBA: Is there any team that you fear?
Varejao: When you come to a competition like this, you have to beat everybody to win. Our goal is to get to the Final.
FIBA: What's the difference between this Brazil team and the one we saw last year at the FIBA Americas Championship or the one from the FIBA World Championship in 2010 ?
Varejao: I'm healthy now. (In Turkey) I was hurt. It's a lot different being healthy and just helping the national team. We have other big bodies with Tiago (Splitter) and Nene (Hilario). It feels good to finally be 100 percent and be able to help the team.
FIBA: How important is it to exploit that height and size advantage that the three of you present?
Varejao: We need to play hard for the whole game. We know that if we get in foul trouble we're going to have another guy coming off the bench and playing at the same level or maybe even higher. It's a good thing to have big men like that.
FIBA: Finally, in head coach Ruben Magnano, you have a former Gold Medal wiinner. Can you talk about his impact on the team?
Varejao: He's our leader, he's a great coach who know a lot about the game. He gives us a lot of shortcuts in the game, what to do. He studied the game a lot. He makes it easier to play the game.
FIBA
http://www.fiba.com/pages/eng/fc/news/i ... /arti.html
