THE NATIONAL TRAINING NETWORK AND THE BRAZILIAN SPORTS POLICY – MORE OF THE SAME? +

Abstract

The Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in 2016 had investments, mainly in athletics, which are distributed throughout the national territory. The National Training Network is a public policy announced as a sporting legacy of the Games. We identified the agreement (n° 813831/2014), arising from a public call in 2013, signed between the Brazilian Athletics Confederation (CBAt) and the Ministry of Sport as central to this implementation. Using path dependence we analyzed documents, conducted interviews and compared them with the conceptual debate of sport and its relations as business and consumption. In the end, it is concluded that the National Training Network presents an innovative proposal, which uses the same approach as the Brazilian sports policy. In other words, there is no rupture with the old pyramidal model and the investment that always reaches the top and is negligible for the categories that would most need this incentive.