Tandara Caixeta

About Tandara Caixeta

Tandara Alves Caixeta (born 30 October 1988) is a Brazilian professional volleyball player. She plays for the Brazil women's national volleyball team and for Sesc-Rio in the Brazilian Superliga. She competed for Brazil in the 2012 Summer Olympics, winning a gold medal. She is 1.84 m (6 ft 0 in) tall. She is the daughter of Evaldo Caixeta, a former amateur player with Banco do Brasil Athletic Association. At the age of nine, after trying many different sports, she saw a TV advert and decided to go to a volleyball trial.

In 2011, she was selected for the Brazil team for the first time and won gold in the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, before becoming an Olympic champion in London in 2012. She has twice been the top scorer in the Brazilian Women's Superliga. She is known for breaking records in the Brazilian Superliga. In the 2013/2014 season, she broke the record of most points in a match, she scored 37 points. In the 2017/2018 season, she broke her own record, scoring 39 points, as well scoring 626 points in the season, as this also being the highest mark in the country. Again in the 2019/2020 season, she broke her record, scoring unbelievable 40 points in 4 sets, as this being the highest mark in the history of volleyball in the brazilian courts.

Caixeta won the 2017 South American Championship Most Valuable Player award. She later won the 2017 FIVB World Grand Champions Cup Best Opposite Spiker award.

During the 2020 Summer Olympics, she was provisionally suspended for doping ahead of Brazil's semi-final against South Korea. Brazil ultimately won the silver medal at the tournament, and though suspended, Caixeta was still listed as a medalist, pending the outcome of the doping investigation.