 In 2011, Cielo announced the creation of P.R.O. 16 – the "Going for 2016 Gold" Project. The initiative, designed to serve as Brazilian swimming's "elite squad", gathered Cielo, who would be leading the project, and six other swimmers – André Schultz, Leonardo de Deus, Nicholas Santos, Henrique Rodrigues, Tales Cerdeira and Vinicius Waked – all selected for potential medals in the 2016 Summer Olympics, in Rio de Janeiro. The idea would be to prepare the swimmers also for the main competition in the coming years. For two years, the innovative program, which proposed a system of high level training without relying on the infrastructure of big clubs, worked. But the difficulty of finding sponsors and the change of attitude of the clubs made the training group lose almost all its members. In 2013, Cielo was the only one left in the project, but highlighted its continuity, with changes in the project, receiving new members and getting new sponsors.
