Volleyball legend Giovane Gávio selected as first Brazilian to run in Rio 2016 Olympic Torch Relay
Double Olympic champion will savour every moment of his participation in relay, which begins in Olympia on 21 April
One of the sport's biggest names, Gávio is now director of volleyball for Rio 2016 (Leandra Benjamin/MPIX/Bradesco)
Former volleyball star Giovane Gávio will be the first Brazilian athlete to carry the Rio 2016 Olympic Torch after the lighting of the flame in Olympia, Greece on 21 April.
An Olympic gold medallist at Barcelona 1992 and Athens 2004, Gávio said he is thrilled by the news. "It will be very exciting to be a torch bearer in Greece as it is sacred ground for the Olympic Games," he said.
Now the director of volleyball for Rio 2016, Gávio participated in the torch relay for Athens 2004, when it travelled through a series of different countries. Gávio carried the torch in Rio de Janeiro before handing it over to Mario Zagallo, the legendary former manager of the Brazilian national football side.
Greek athlete to start the relay
At the ceremony in Olympia, Greek gymnast Eleftherios Petrounias, world champion on the rings in 2015, will light the torch for Rio 2016 using a flame lit with a mirror by actress Katerina Lehou in the role of a high priestess. After officially starting the relay, Petrounias will then pass the torch to Gávio.
Check out the route of the Olympic torch relay for 2016:
A volleyball superstar
One of the sport's biggest names in the 1990s and the early 2000s, Gávio played more than 400 games with the Brazilian national team, including 31 matches in the Olympic Games. Standing 1.96m tall, Gávio was voted the best blocker at the 1989 World Cup in Japan, the best player in the 1993 World League and the best attacker in the 2003 World Cup in Japan. As well as taking home the Olympic gold medal from Barcelona 1992 and Athens 2004, Gávio was a world champion at Argentina 2002 and was four times a winner of the World League, in 1993, 2001, 2003 and 2004. Gávio has also had success as a coach in Brazil.
Gávio was one of the torch bearers for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games (Photo: Bradesco)
Find out more about the Olympic torch relay
From Greece, the torch will continue to the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne, Switzerland. It will arrive in Brazil on 3 May for the start of the relay in the capital Brasília. The torch will then visit 328 towns and cities in every Brazilian state before arriving in Rio de Janeiro, host city to the 2016 Olympic Games. Each of the 12,000 torch bearers will carry the torch for 250 metres.
