Olympic contenders: Marcus D’Almeida | Les Huit à Paris 2024

This article series, Les Huit à Paris, spotlights eight of the biggest contenders for the individual titles at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

In 2014 Marcus D’Almeida – aged only 15 – took a Youth Olympic Games silver medal in Nanjing.

He lost out to Lee Woo Seok.

D’Almeida beat Lee for the Hyundai Archery World Cup trophy in 2023 – in a phenomenal final. Exactly 10 years on, the pair are big contenders.

Both archers, alongside several other Nanjing alumni, arrive at the senior games this summer. Much is expected…

…but perhaps of none more so than this man.

Quick stats

• Name: Marcus D’Almeida, Brazil
• Age: 26
• World ranking: 1
• Olympic caps: 2 (Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games)

Why it might happen

Shortly before Rio 2016, an enterprising journalist dubbed 17-year-old Marcus Vinicius D’Almeida “Archery’s Neymar”. It is a sobriquet that ended up dogging him for years.

Who’s Neymar?

Marcus had shot to fame, when, still only 16, he finished second to Brady Ellison in the 2014 Archery World Cup Final after a shoot-off. He was world youth champion the next year.

The talent was there, but Marcus was raw.

Brazil didn‘t have an archery tradition. But, suddenly, D’Almeida was creating one. It was too much. The pressure on the young man to perform at his home Olympics was too much. He lost in the first round – and spent the next few years in the archery wilderness.

Too much, too young.

Eight years and two Olympic cycles later, Marcus is ready.

Silver at the worlds in 2021, bronze at the worlds in 2023, the reigning Hyundai Archery World Cup Champion and the reigning world number one arriving in Paris.

He’s ready.

Why it might not

Marcus hasn’t quite mastered the art of finishing.

There are more than a few silver medals in his trophy cabinet. He’s only stepped up to the top slot a few times – but, crucially, it’s often been against Koreans.

(He’s a long-time protege of top Korean coach Kim Hyung-Tak and seems to have no issue defeating the men in white. It’s the others, that he’s perhaps not prepared for, who trouble him.)

Paris is also likely to result in an individual medal or nothing.

Brazil has one man and one woman going, and the pairing of Marcus and Ana Sliachticas has produced one incredible finals appearance – a bronze medal defeat of Korea in Medellin in 2023.

A repeat of such a run would be a shock.

The pressure is squarely on Marcus’ shoulders at the Olympics. While he’s clearly better able to handle it now, the spotlight is never easy to deal with. Especially not for a country like Brazil.

And Neymar isn’t at these Olympics.

Brazil’s D’Almeida it is, then.

Did you know? 

Brazil has never won a medal in archery at the Olympics.

Marcus made the last 16 at Tokyo 2020, and Ane Dos Santos made the last 16 in Rio, the best performing of the six-strong home squad – which saw her getting mobbed like a rock star by fans at the Sambodromo venue.

Brazil’s first archery appearance was in 1980 when Emilio Renato Dutra e Mello competed – the first of four appearances at the Games. But so far, Marcus and Ane have produced the best results…

…the odds are high that is about to change.