When Brazil beat the US on the 2022 Pan American Gymnastics Championships, Rebeca Andrade stated this win was “for the women which might be developing and those who got here earlier than us.”
That quote in itself was highly effective seeing such an influential gymnast of Andrade’s caliber working to prop up the youthful gymnasts inside her program, whereas paying respects to the pioneers who made her profession doable. However there was a deeper which means to the quote.
This competitors was held on Brazilian soil, within the metropolis of Rio de Janeiro and the workforce received gold in entrance of a house crowd. Amongst these within the stands have been Jade Barbosa, Daiane dos Santos, and Lais Souza. They have been three of a very powerful trailblazers within the historical past of Brazil’s girls’s creative gymnastics (WAG) program.
Jade and Daiane are Brazilian icons who’re well-known to gymnastics followers. Daiane dos Santos has the excellence of being the primary Brazilian WAG to win a gold medal on the Group-1 degree (World Championships and/or Olympics). Whereas Barbosa was the primary Brazilian WAG to ever win an All-Round medal in such competitors.
Outdoors of Brazil the gymnast Lais Souza isn’t as well-known to the gymnastics fanbase, however she was one of the vital efficient gymnasts Brazil has ever had. Souza was the primary WAG in Brazilian historical past to qualify to occasion finals on two completely different apparatuses in her profession. She was such a dependable member of the Brazilian lineup that on the 9 events the place Brazil as a workforce completed contained in the top-10 of a Group-1 degree competitors, 5 of them have been groups that includes Lais within the lineup.
Souza was formally named to a few Olympic groups, however was solely in a position to compete in two Olympics due to an harm. Lais additionally has the unlucky distinction of ending 4th in a Group-1 degree competitors, solely to complete her profession with out ever successful medal. However at the same time as her gymnastics profession had reached its conclusion, Lais discovered a brand new approach to advance the Brazilian flag in athletic competitors.
Brazil was slated to host the Olympics in 2016, and one of many nation’s objectives was to enter Rio-2016 with momentum by having a robust displaying on the 2014 Winter Olympics. As a largely tropical nation, Brazil had little infrastructure amongst its Winter sports activities packages. However Brazil’s athletic management realized that certainly one of its most viable paths to increasing the dimensions of its 2014 delegation was to construct an aerial snowboarding program from scratch and recruiting gymnasts able to switching sports activities.
Sidenote: Uzbekistan’s solely gold medal on the Winter Olympics was received by a gymnast who switched to aerial snowboarding when she was 19 years outdated.
Lais not solely excelled on this function, however six months after adopting her new sport she grew to become Brazil’s prime ranked aerial skier and certified to the Winter Olympics. Brazil invested a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars} in its aerial snowboarding program. The funding was nicely price it as Lais was certainly one of two former WAGs to finish Brazil’s 2014 Winter Olympic lineup in aerial snowboarding. Elevating the overall variety of Brazilian athletes slated to compete in Sochi from 12 to 14. Brazil has not certified an Olympian in aerial snowboarding earlier than or because the 2014 Olympics. Brazil was a geographical outlier, being the one nation from Latin America or Africa to take part in aerial snowboarding on the 2014 Olympics.
However in one of the vital heartbreaking freak accidents involving a gymnast, Lais broke her neck in a snowboarding accident one week earlier than her deliberate departure for the Olympics and was left paralyzed from the neck down. The accident occurred not on a coaching run, however throughout a leisure outing. It was a freak accident that might have occurred to anybody.
Whereas gymnastics has quite a few examples of WAGs experiencing horrific, life-altering accidents, Lais Souza’s case was amongst the worst of the worst. Her situation was way more extreme even when in comparison with different gymnasts who’ve additionally suffered a damaged neck. Lais wanted a tracheotomy as a result of the harm prevented her from respiratory usually. Throughout her restoration she had situations of “turning purple” when blood clots restricted oxygen from reaching her lungs. In an effort to talk she needed to place a stick in her mouth and used it to kind on an iPad.
The non-public battle Lais Souza needed to overcome significantly exceeded modern examples corresponding to Elena Mukhina and Sang Lan. However ultimately, Souza did overcome it. After years of grueling rehabilitation her situation significantly improved. Lais ceaselessly produces probably the most inspiring interviews and quotes. She takes the “glass is half full” strategy in her discourse. Proving that with sufficient psychological power, an individual can discover happiness and positivity in probably the most troublesome of circumstances.
Souza can be extremely insightful in her interviews and offers views on the tiniest of particulars showcasing what it’s wish to dwell in her sneakers. From the problem of rehab, to curbing the embarrassment of getting somebody change your diaper and providing you with a shower. Lais Souza even has a tattoo of an individual sitting in a wheelchair and rising to their toes. That’s the positivity, insightfulness, and willpower of Lais Souza.
If Rebeca Andrade’s efficiency was highly effective to look at, it was much more so understanding Lais Souza was within the stands to personally witness it. It was on this exact same metropolis in 2007 that Souza together with dos Santos and Barbosa fashioned probably the most historic lineup in Brazilian WAG historical past. Regardless that it wasn’t technically a Group-1 degree competitors, the 2007 Pan American Video games was Brazil’s dream workforce in WAG.
It not solely featured Souza, dos Santos, and Barbosa, however Daniele Hypolito as nicely. Finally making it probably the most star studded lineup Brazilian WAG ever had. 4 of the most important legends Brazilian WAG has ever identified have been all on one workforce. Most significantly, the 2007 Pan American Video games was extremely profitable and demonstrated Brazil’s means to host a big scale occasion. It fashioned the idea of the IOC’s choice to award Brazil the successful bid to host the 2016 Olympics. Girls’s gymnastics was significantly profitable resulting from how a lot recognition Brazilian WAG achieved for itself in the course of the competitors.
The return of Souza, Barbosa, and dos Santos to the exact same metropolis to look at the following era of gymnasts win added symbolism to the second. They have been in a position to see the outcomes of a seed they planted fifteen years prior.
What makes Brazil completely different from different WAG packages, they’re a nation of 212 million individuals who function their WAG program as a small, unique, and tight nit group. Not like the US which hardly ever retains a gymnast past two Olympic cycles, it is not uncommon for Brazilian athletes to compete in three or extra Olympic cycles. Hypolito represented Brazil on the 1999 World Championships, but she competed in home competitors all through 2021.
The bonds between teammates have existed for a lot longer and are far stronger in your typical Brazilian lineup than most packages corresponding to the US. When Barbosa and Hypolito competed on the home circuit in 2021, they did so whereas sporting leotards, however behaved like coaches. Each time a youthful gymnast faltered on the equipment, Barbosa was there to consolation that gymnast after which spend two minutes explaining to her how that mistake will be averted sooner or later.
After which Hypolito would come alongside and strategy the very same gymnast and provides her the very same pep discuss. The home competitions of Brazil have been stuffed with these examples in 2021. It was an particularly selfless act from Hypolito and Barbosa as a result of they’re growing old veterans whose careers are threatened by younger gymnasts rising up the ranks. But neither Hypolito nor Barbosa appear to care about that. Their aim is supporting their teammates and making Brazil the strongest program it will probably probably be. Private self-interests are fully disregarded.
So when Andrade says this win is for “those who got here earlier than us” that assertion has weight to it. Brazil is exclusive within the lengths gymnasts of the previous like Hypolito and Barbosa will go to help the following era. Andrade and her contemporaries additionally know the historical past of Brazilian WAG, as a result of gymnasts like Hypolito who kickstarted the fashionable period of Brazilian WAG all the best way again within the Nineties nonetheless compete alongside them. Not like different nations, Brazilian gymnasts aren’t faraway from their very own program historical past, they develop up residing alongside it.
They know the battle of Brazil’s rise from a program that wasn’t taken significantly up to now, to at least one that now wins Olympic gold. They work together with the very gymnasts who pioneered the trail that helped South America pierce the ability construction of a sport that when excluded Latin America. They perceive what it took for a girls’s program to rise, acquire recognition, and excel in a rustic the place feminine athletes have traditionally been underrepresented on the Olympics.
Within the twenty first century Brazil’s participation charges amongst girls on the Olympics are nicely above the worldwide common. However for everything of the twentieth century, Brazil was under the worldwide common. Of all of the nations with robust WAG packages, Brazil was the final to “cross” the gender line by having participation charges for feminine Olympians that have been first considerably behind, then finally equal to, and finally exceeding the worldwide common.
The importance of this being, with the intention to have success in such an costly girls’s sport like WAG, a rustic is almost definitely to have already developed a robust sports activities infrastructure within the inexpensive girls’s sports activities. Having a robust girls’s sporting legacy is commonly a perquisite for constructing a robust WAG legacy. It was underneath that context, and overcoming such a drawback for feminine athletes that Hypolito’s profession started within the Nineties.
The historic neglect of its girls’s sports activities lineup is what made Rebeca Andrade the primary feminine athlete from Brazil to win a number of medals at a single Olympics. In addition to the primary Brazilian girl to win a number of medals within the particular person occasions. These aren’t WAG data, however multi-sport data. Brazilian girls didn’t win as usually up to now as a result of there weren’t as many Brazilian girls attending the Olympics.
However coincidentally, as a result of Brazil is a comparatively younger energy in girls’s Olympic sports activities, Brazilian WAGs have a better time producing huge quantities of help for themselves. On Instagram Barbosa has 740K followers. Lais Souza has 709K despite the fact that her final Olympic look was 2008. Daiane dos Santos has 330K followers despite the fact that probably the most well-known portion of her profession got here within the 2001-2004 Olympic cycle. Hypolito has 478K, Flavia Saraiva has 1 million, and Rebeca Andrade has 2.2 million.
It will be correct to say Brazilian WAG has a number of the largest social media followings in all of gymnastics. For all the shortage of correct help feminine Brazilian athletes had up to now, the nation is making up for misplaced time with fervor. Supporting its present era of athletes with such ardour that it could make gymnasts from different WAG powers really feel envious.
The identical development additionally impacted Rayssa Leal, the 13 yr outdated skateboarder who received a silver medal for Brazil on the 2021 Olympics. Her Instagram following at the moment sits at 6.4 million and is barely narrowly behind that of Simone Biles. Proving how shortly feminine Olympians are constructing huge private manufacturers for themselves in Brazil.
For Rebeca Andrade, saying her 2022 gold medal is for “those who got here earlier than us” has a agency and necessary which means behind it. It wasn’t sufficient that Barbosa and Hypolito took the following era underneath their wings and put the wants of their younger teammates forward of their very own private wants. Going above and past the usual name of obligation when veteran gymnasts are tasked with supporting the kids in different packages. Earlier than any of that had occurred, they labored to tear down limitations within the realm of gender equality and bias in opposition to gymnasts from South America in worldwide competitors.
However when Rebeca then provides “for the women which might be developing” she means one thing else. Rebeca intends to have the 2022 Pan American Gymnastics Championships do for future generations what the 2007 Pan American Video games did for her era.
Because the Brazilian gymnasts got here to the belief that they have been going to win gold as a workforce in 2022, they included Barbosa of their victory celebrations. Going so far as to let Jade maintain the Brazilian flag as they posed alongside it to take the victory picture that might outline your entire competitors. That’s the greatest a part of this story. Barbosa gave every part she needed to help the youthful gymnasts on the workforce. For these younger gymnasts, they see it, they acknowledge it, and do their greatest to at all times give respect again in the direction of Barbosa as she rightfully deserves.
However their biggest type of giving respect again to Daniele Hypolito and Jade Barbosa will are available later years. After they ahead the legacy Hypolito and Barbosa began by persevering with to win medals in more and more prestigious vogue. But in addition, by treating the kids on future groups with the identical care Jade and Daniele handled them with. By persevering with to make Brazil this system the place each gymnast helps one another and subscribes to a mindset the place it doesn’t matter who wins medals.
Solely that Brazil wins medals.
