Olympics - Lula promises Brazil "less sleep, more work"

By John Acher

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Friday Brazilians would have to sleep less and work more to fulfill their responsibility as the first South American country to host the Olympic Games.

A tearful, jubilant Lula hailed the International Olympic Committee's choice of Rio to hold the 2016 Games over Chicago, Madrid and Tokyo as a great day for Brazil and a coming of age for his country.

"Brazil needed these Olympic Games," he told a news conference after weeping openly and copiously into a white handkerchief.

"Today I have felt more pride at being Brazilian than ever before," the 63-year-old president said.

Previous defeats had taught Brazil a lot, Lula said. "We're not a second rate country, we're a first rate country."

He said that Brazil's history as a colony meant that Brazilians had "certain manias...a mania to think small."

"The IOC today has decided to increase our responsibility as Brazilians," the president said.

"We are going to have to sleep less, think more and work more," he said. "Now our term of reference is going to be work, work, work -- work for Brazil to do better than any other time in its history."