08/01/2021 6:46 AM
Clarín.com
sports
Updated 08/01/2021 7:01 AM
The Brazilian
Rebeca Andrade
hung the gold this Sunday in the final of the jump of the artistic gymnastics competition at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games ahead of the American Mykayla Skinner, who was silver, and the South Korean Yeo Seojeong, who was bronze.
Andrade obtained a score of 15,083 to win her second medal in these Tokyo Games, where she had already won silver in the individual general competition behind the American Sunisa Lee.
It is the first gold medal in history for Brazil in the female branch of artistic gymnastics.
And he can go for more in a competition in which the unexpected absence of Simone Biles, who in the last hours also gave up participating in the floor final.
Makes flag.
Rebeca Andrade celebrates her gold in jumping.
Photo: EFE
Such a position was unthinkable two years ago for Andrade, when he underwent his third operation for
torn ligaments in one knee
. But it seems that there is nothing that could discourage a young woman used to overcoming all setbacks
since she first entered a gym, at age 4, thanks to a social project of the Guarulhos mayor's office
.
With a mother who worked as a domestic worker and was in charge of a household of eight children
, Rebeca was forced to suspend her training "when money was tight."
But her coaches, who saw her full potential, organized to take her to the gym.
At the age of 9, he went to train for a year in Curitiba and a year later he signed for Flamengo in Rio de Janeiro.
Rebeca Andrade was moved after finding out that she was keeping the gold.
Photo: AFP
Already on her first day in gymnastics, she earned the nickname
Daianinha de Guarulhos
, an allusion to
Daiane dos Santos
, the Brazilian gymnast who won 9 gold medals at world championships between 2003 and 2006.
She was his constant inspiration and last Thursday he was excited to see the role of his disciple in the general artistic gymnastics contest, where a couple of exits from the mat in the floor exercise deprived her of her first gold - which would finally come this Sunday.
"For a long time they told us that there could not be a black gymnast. That black women could not do some sports. And today we see the first medal in gymnastics for a black girl. There is a huge representation behind that,"
Dos Santos said during the transmission of competition.
And that the gold had not yet arrived ...
A history of struggle
Brazilian Rebeca Andrade and her incomparable pirouettes at the Ariake Gymnastics Center in Tokyo.
Photo: EFE / Enric Fontcuberta
In 2012, at just 13 years old, she won the Brazil Artistic Gymnastics Trophy, beating legends such as Daniele Hypólito or Jade Barbosa, in her first championship as a professional. "It was then that my name began to be better known," she recalls.
In her international debut as an adult, in 2015, she achieved bronze in the World Cup stage held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in asymmetrical parallels, although she immediately began to suffer one of the worst experiences in the world of sport: injuries.
Rebeca Andrade will go for more in Tokyo.
Photo: DPA
In 2015, 2017 and 2019, her knees forced her to undergo surgery. "I grew a lot with all that. My maturation was very great, as a person and an athlete. It's
not that I like having gone through those moments of injury, but it was essential to grow,
"he said last year in a live of the Brazilian Gymnastics Confederation.
The last surgery, in 2019, took her 8 months away from the sport.
But the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Games due to the coronavirus pandemic gave him time to regain his level.
And boy did he get it back.
Now he is making pure history at the Olympics.
With information from AFP
Look also
Tokyo 2020: Simone Biles got off the floor final and the world wonders if she will compete again
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