Carnival parade champion thrills spectators

(5 Mar 2017) This year's winner of the Rio de Janeiro Carnival parade competition, the Portela samba school, performed one last time early Sunday for thousands of spectators.
Earlier this week judges gave Portela 269.9 points out of 270, only 0.1 more than the runner-up group, Mocidade Independente, putting an end to a 33-year drought for the group known as one of the cradles of the contest.
Portela's last parade contest win had been in 1984. Still, the traditional samba school holds more titles than all of Rio's other schools, with 22 in total.
This year's theme for Portela was the waters of rivers.
The group included a section inspired by the 2015 collapse of the Mariana iron ore dam that sent a wall of mud through two states and ruined the Doce River.
The float and costumes based on the incident were cited by the judges as one of the main reasons for Portela's victory.
Portela is home to some of Brazil's most popular samba artists.
The samba school's comeback was a positive amid a competition marred by two accidents with floats that injured 31 people this year.

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