Brasília, 6/25/2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Four Brazilian Para-Olympic athletes will participate in a world swimming meet between July 22 and 24 in Barcelona. They are Mauro Brasil, Fabiana Sugimori, Adriano Lima and Fabiano Machado. This is the first time that handicapped Brazilian swimmers participate in a world meet. Their participation was made possible with funding from Federal Mortgage and Savings Bank (Caixa Econômica Federal) lotteries.

According to the Ministry of Sports, up to May, the Para-Olympic Committee had received over R$4 million. Since 2001, a percentage of lottery proceeds go to sports. Since then, the Brazilian Olympic Committee has received R$15.8 million. (AB)