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Brazil sets Olympic bubble in Portugal due to pandemic at home

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil has set up its Olympic training camp in Rio … Rio Maior that is, a relatively small Portuguese city of 21,000 residents outside Lisbon.

Brazil’s Olympic committee feared its team would lag before the Tokyo Games next year after months of inactivity at home. So since mid-July, 72 high-performance swimmers, judokas, boxers and gymnasts have been training at the Rio Maior Sports Center to try to catch up to rivals who started earlier.

Altogether, the camp involves more than 100 Brazilians, all of whom had to test negative for the coronavirus before leaving home, and on arriving in Portugal.