RIO DE JANEIRO — One of the world’s most improbable sports centers is a hulking, light-blue building on a mud-caked alley in Chacrinha, a favela on the western outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Inside are four gleaming, regulation-size courts for badminton, a game that until recently few Brazilians had ever heard of, let alone played.
This is the Miratus Center, and on any given afternoon, about 200 local boys and girls will train there, dressed in matching yellow and green shirts. For the best of them, 19-year-old Ygor Coelho de Oliveira, this is not just his home court; it is his home.