REBECA ANDRADE

Back in training after her Olympic triumph, Brazil's beloved gymnast Rebeca Andrade reflects on a journey fueled by grit, talent, and her mother's love.

- FERNANDA SANTOS

She glanced to her right from the podium's highest perch and saw, on the silver medal spot, the most decorated gymnast in the world, Simone Biles. She searched for her teammates; they were crying on the sidelines of the springy carpet where she had just delivered a dazzling floor exercise routine at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. The feeling of reaching a goal for which she had worked so hard-"I really wanted the gold," Rebeca Andrade recalls-hadn't yet sunk in when Biles and another American gymnast, Jordan Chiles, dropped to one knee and bowed to her.

By then, Andrade, 25, had surpassed the sailors Robert Scheidt and Torben Grael to become the most decorated Olympic medal winner from Brazil, her home country. The moment's significance transcends Andrade's own achievement. "It's important for Black girls and Black boys to be able to see people like them-people like us-on such a gigantic stage, winning a competition that is so important, that has so much visibility," Andrade says in Portuguese in a video interview from Rio de Janeiro, where she has trained for 15 years. "I understand the importance of our representation." Andrade is a Black girl from the periferia, the Portuguese word that describes the low-income neighborhoods that hug Brazil's urban centers. She spent her childhood moving around Vila Fátima, on the edge of Guarulhos, the second most populous city in Brazil's most populous state, São Paulo.

Her mother, Rosa Santos, was a maid raising eight children pretty much on her own. Santos brought Andrade along to work sometimes, to houses so big Andrade lost count of how many rooms they had. The people who lived there "were really well off," she says, and shares how her mother framed the experience for her: It was not their reality, but there was nothing wrong if that was what she aspired to have someday.