On May 23, 2016, a plot of land that had housed a troubled unit of the former Febem (São Paulo state's juvenile detention agency) — today the Fundação Casa — became one of the most modern sports facilities in the country: the Centro de Treinamento Paralímpico Brasileiro (Brazilian Paralympic Training Center).
The change of use already says something about what the place came to mean.
What was built
Construction took two and a half years, at kilometer 11.5 of the Rodovia dos Imigrantes highway, in Vila Guarani, in the south of São Paulo. It cost R$305 million, R$187 million of it from the Ministério do Esporte (Brazil's Ministry of Sport) and the rest from the São Paulo state government.
The complex has courts for wheelchair tennis, wheelchair basketball, sitting volleyball, goalball, blind football and cerebral palsy football, as well as a multipurpose arena. There are also facilities for wheelchair fencing, judo, taekwondo, boccia and table tennis, Olympic-size and semi-Olympic pools, indoor and outdoor running tracks, and accommodation for about 300 people.
In 2017, the Comitê Paralímpico Brasileiro (CPB, Brazilian Paralympic Committee) won a public tender to run the center for five years. In 2024, the agreement was extended for another 35 years, and the CPB moved its administrative headquarters from Brasília to São Paulo.
What changed in the medal table
- Rio 2016 — 72 medals, 8th place
- Tokyo 2020 (held in 2021) — 72 medals, but 22 golds (eight more), 7th place
- Paris 2024 — 25 golds and 88 podiums, top five for the first time
Last year, Brazil topped the World Para Athletics Championships, finishing ahead of China.
From training center to talent pipeline
The project was designed for elite sport and has also become a breeding ground. The Escola Paralímpica de Esportes (Paralympic Sports School), created in 2018, is free of charge and introduces adapted sports to young people aged 7 to 17 with physical, visual and intellectual disabilities. The model has been replicated across the country.
Alessandra Oliveira, whose arms and legs were amputated after vaccine-associated vasculitis, learned to swim in the program. At 18, she became world champion in the SB4 100-meter breaststroke, in Singapore, in 2025.
João Pedro Santos joined in 2019, after losing his sight to congenital glaucoma. At the 2024 Youth Parapan American Games in Bogotá, he won three medals — two of them gold, in the T11 100 and 400 meters.
Calendar
The first major competition it hosted was the 2017 Youth Parapan American Games. Since then, there have been more than 2,200 events, including the Festival Paralímpico (Paralympic Festival) and the Paralimpíadas Escolares (Brazil's School Paralympics).
In 2025, the center hosted the U23 Wheelchair Basketball World Championship. The Wheelchair Rugby World Championship takes place from August 15 to 24, 2026.
With information from Agência Brasil. Original report by Lincoln Chaves, published on May 23, 2026.
