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Anderson Silva pushes to compete for Brazil at 2016 Olympics

Anderson Silva pushes to compete for Brazil at 2016 Olympics

When the Olympic Summer games head to Rio de Janeiro next summer, Brazil could have former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva helping its medal count.

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That is, if "Spider" has anything to say about.

Silva, who is 5th-degree black belt in taekwondo, penned a letter to the president of the Brazilian Taekwondo Federation (CBTKD), Carlos Fernandes, expressing his desire to compete for the national team in the 2016 Summer Games.

"Everybody knows that for a high-performance athlete, the Olympic games is the dream of every athlete, and it wouldn't be different with me," Silva wrote on the CBTKD webpage. "It will be a great pleasure to be part of this golden team, which has a serious institution, commanded by president Carlos Fernandes, who honors us very much, along with his team. Therefore, I wish to represent taekwondo and Brazil in the Olympic games in 2016. With all my esteem, strength and honor."

Whether or not Silva actually represents Brazil is anyone's guess at this point; however, Silva is, in fact, meeting with President Fernandes soon to discuss, as Fernandes has stated, this "magnificent possibility."

Silva began his taekwondo training at just 14 years old. Since that time, he used it to become one of the most heralded strikers the sport of mixed martial arts has ever seen. Silva, 39, is currently suspended by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for failing drug tests before and after his fight with Nick Diaz in January at UFC 183.

Silva has expressed interest in a potential Olympic run in previous years, but the talk was quickly shut down as Silva focused on his MMA career.

Testing for the Olympics is conducted by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and is much more stringent than the tests he faced during his MMA career. If Silva is looking to put his PED debacle in MMA to rest, a clean and authoritative run in Rio may just help in restoring his championship legacy with fight fans.