Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 16, 2020 - It will soon be 24 years since Sandra Pires made history in teaming with Jackie Silva to become the first beach volleyball team to win an Olympic gold medal as the Brazilians accomplished the feat at the Atlanta Olympic Games on July 27, 1996.
Sandra's debut on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour has never been duplicated by any other women's or men's player in history as she never finished lower than fourth in her first 35 international events that featured 14 gold medals, 33 finals, 33 podiums and 35 final fours.
Sandra Pires (right) with her Olympic and World Championship partner Jackie Silva at the FIVB Olympic House at the Rio 2016 Summer Games.
So, what is Sandra doing today as she celebrates her 47th birthday?
"I still live in Rio, as I’ve done for my entire life now," said Sandra, who won 20 total FIVB World Tour gold medals with four different partners. "I’m currently a sports ambassador with Banco do Brasil, which is something I’ve been doing since 2010. I also got a degree in physical education, but I haven’t really worked with it."
As for her birthday, Sandra said she doesn't have "any major plans. I will stay home and be with my closest friends basically. Hopefully, I get a lot of phone and video calls, which is the best we can do right now. I do not feel like it is a moment to celebrate, so I will keep it to my closest friends and family only. I have lost people I knew to COVID, so I do not really feel like celebrating at this moment. It will be a normal day, hopefully a sunny day, and I’ll try to do the simple things I enjoy like getting some sun, riding my bike and running around a little bit."
Sandra Pires holding her Olympic medals
As for her successes on the international beach volleyball scene where she played in 110 FIVB World Tour events with eight different partners with 52 medals to her credit, Sandra said "the Olympic medals, for sure, are a key part of my story, as is the World Championships victory in 1997. I had a pretty good start in the sport and those results reflected it."
Her induction in 2014 into the Volleyball Hall of Fame in the United States at Holyoke, Mass., is another highlight for Sandra. "To be in Massachusetts and be part of that party in the place where the sport started was amazing," said Sandra, who actually started playing beach volleyball full-time on an American domestic tour in 1994 with Jackie.
"I took 21 friends from Brazil with me and it was a great party," added Sandra, who also captured the bronze medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympics with Adriana Samuel. "Even though I retired in 2008, I feel like that event was what actually sealed the end of my career the way it should. The Brazilian Olympic Committee also recently created its Hall of Fame where Jackie and I were among the few the athletes which were selected to initiate it."
Sandra also cited a gold win at the 2001 Goodwill Games in Australia with Tati Minello as being "really special. We played in an amazing stadium (South Bank Piazza) in Brisbane and we defeated the home team in the semifinals (Natalie Cook/Kerri Pottharst) before winning the gold medal match against Shelda (Bede) and Adriana (Behar)."
Winning five World Tour events in Brazil, including back-to-back wins with Jackie in Rio also made Sandra "happy. I remember a victory with Jackie on Copacabana in 1995, which was really special. It’s something that always touched me."
In her final competitive season on the FIVB World Tour, Sandra ended her career in 2008 playing with Leila Barros as the pair competed in five tournaments with her final matches in Guarujá, Brazil.
Three-time Brazilian Olympian Sandra Pires (right) hits at the net against Austrian Cornelia Rimser (center) as her Brazilian partner Leila Barros watches the action in Guarujá.
A winner of 74.2 percent of her FIVB World Tour matches (435-151), Sandra said she doesn't "think the game is very different today. I feel that the biggest change in the World Tour happened for the most part with the European countries. We hear of countries with cold weather building a lot of indoor courts and hiring very good coaches, including several Brazilians, and that improved their level. So, I think that the world kind of caught up with Brazil and the United States in a certain way."
Sandra added: "There’s no such a thing as a hegemonic country or a clear favourite right now. Europeans really improved their level. I feel that the United States are one step ahead with beach volleyball becoming a college sport for women now and they will probably improve their teams in the near future."
As for the coronavirus, Sandra added that "postponing the events was not only the right approach in my opinion, it was the only thing that could be done right now. This situation has impacted even the Olympics, so I did not expect it to be any different with the World Tour. The only thing that can be done now is pushing tournaments forward and hoping they can be played at some point. Hopefully, we can have a lot of tournaments next season to kind of make up for this one. But everything is so uncertain and even though some countries have started reopening we don’t know what the next weeks and months will look like."
A television commentator with Sportv for 10 years in Brazil, Sandra ended her conversation by stating that "the key for countries who want to succeed in beach volleyball is to build enough courts so athletes can prepare and to provide them with opportunities to play at a high level. That was always a difference-maker for Brazil as our national tour was strong. It was a big difference when we started the World Tour season coming from our national tour. You could tell we were in much better rhythm than the Europeans, the Asians and even the Americans."