Paco Arado is enthusiastic about the table tennis practiced by Hugo Calderano. The 53-year-old Cuban coach has accompanied the Brazilian athlete of 29, a highlight in the mode circuit-the tennist table has been accumulating titles and is in the semifinals of the Macau stage-and is impressed.
The coach left his position in the Brazilian team at the end of the last edition of the Olympic Games to dedicate himself to other sports projects. However, although it is not the official coach of Calderano-it is currently a fixed coach-due to the relationship of years, remains close to the tennist table.
He was next to Calderano in the recent stages of Malmö and Foz de Iguaçu and now does the same in Macau. In Paris, last year, he saw the Tesheunista to build the best campaign of a Brazilian in the history of the Olympic Games, reaching the semifinals and then having two harsh defeats, which cost him the medal.
“In table tennis you wins, loses and faces the fight. Hugo faced the fight, had a chance, but the others also played very well. He tried, did what he could, could not. He was upset, got up, won the World Cup and the medal [de prata] in the World Cup. This is our life, it is the life of the sport, “Paco told the Sheet At CER (Recreational Sports Center) Bochófilo São José, in São Caetano do Sul, where he trains the city team.
“It’s not an exact science where you can say that you will or will not. The certainty I have is that he will fight to get what he wants,” added the Cuban.
He said he considers Calderano a “genius,” with a mental force to recover at adverse times. “He is among the best in the world [é o atual número quatro do ranking mundial] And it can be number one. For Hugo, there is no limit. “
According to Paco, Brazilian table tennis has undergone an important evolution over the last few years, with a new high performance mindset.
However, despite the work developed by CBTM (Brazilian Table Tennis Confederation) and the existence of a series of promising names, he pointed out that it will be difficult to find a Calderano level player in the near future.
“Geniuses are not born every day. Hugo is a genius, and it is not very easy to replace, nowhere in the world. Even China, which has a great renewal, can not have this kind of genius all the time. Hugo is an out of the curve,” said the coach.
Paco said he naturally saw the migratory episode involving the tennist table in early July, when Calderano could not take his visa in time to compete in the United States due to a trip to Cuba in 2023.
“It’s a United States law, it didn’t have time to take a visa. It was a misunderstanding, it’s part of life, but it’s the law.”
A native of the small municipality of Güines, in the province of Mayabeque, Paco Arado began in the sport as a child due to the influence of the family of sportsmen.
At the Pan American Games of Mar del Plata, in Argentina, in 1995, won the silver medal in the mixed pairs, alongside Madeleine Arms.
Four years later, at the PAN of Winnipeg, Canada, he took the bronze, becoming the first Cuban table to win a medal in the individual men’s individual category in the tournament. He still played the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 before retiring from the Cuban team.
The following year, he moved to Brazil, where he married also former Messian Monica Doti. She defended the country at the Barcelona Games in 1992 and Atlanta in 1996 and won the Bronze by teams at the Pan de Havana in 1991.
In 2010, Arado joined the Brazilian National Team’s technical committee, first as Jean-René Mounier’s assistant, assuming the role of main technician in 2016.
After leaving the position of coach of the national team, Arado works now to find new talents that can represent Brazil in sport in international competitions.
In addition to work as a technician from São Caetano and travel with Calderano, he today also works in the project “Rota for Los Angeles”, from CBTM, which seeks to identify and develop young talents. The name is an allusion to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
One of the boys in the project is Paco’s son, Felipe Arado, 19. At the end of August, playing alongside Leonardo Iizuka, Felipe was champion in pairs at Pan Júnior, Asuncion, Paraguay. In the mixed pairs, he took the bronze, acting alongside Karina Shiray.
Despite the promising results, the coach prefers not to put pressure on the young man.
“My son is a good player, that’s all, a good young player, like so many others that there is in Brazil. He has to do his best. If I can, I will be satisfied,” said Paco, who acknowledged that he ends up suffering more by accompanying his son’s matches. “When you are a child, it hurts more. Only who is a father knows. But it’s part.”
