Simone says that out of all her competitors, this gymnast scared her the most.
American artistic gymnast Simone Biles is unquestionably hard to beat. Her technique, timing, precision and power are what sets her apart from everyone else. They are qualities that allow her to do things no one else can and why her performances have earned her the title of the most decorated gymnast in history.
Still, as we spectators have learned from the women’s gymnastics competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics, defeating her isn’t entirely impossible.
Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade, a 25-year-old, 3-time Olympian (and highly rated gymnast herself) surely had no illusions about whether she could beat Biles at the Paris Games, but that’s not how Biles remembers the event. Biles said she had never been so stressed in an all-around final and joked that she no longer wanted to compete against the Brazilian powerhouse.
“I don’t want to compete with Rebeca no more (sic). I’m tired,” the 11-time Olympic medalist quipped with reporters. “She’s way too close. I’ve never had an athlete that close so it definitely put me on my toes and it brought up the best athlete in myself.”
Biles called Andrade a “phenomenal athlete,” one who forced her to “bring out the big guns this time.” But even with so much worldwide media attention (the kind that typically pits top athletes against one another), their rivalry is far from contentious. Actually, whenever Biles would strike her end poses, Andrade couldn’t help but break into proud smiles too.
“Simone is the best. She brings out the best in me,” Andrade said when she and Biles traded leads at the Paris games, a testament to her friendship with Team USA and the wonderful camaraderie between them. She and Biles have both mentioned that watching each other’s performances is a great source of motivation that pushes them to give their all.
Over the years, the competitors have been neck and neck. They both made their Olympic debut in Rio in 2016, with Biles winning her first all-around gold. While Biles faced challenges three years ago at the Tokyo Olympics that were also tied to her mental health, Andrade battled through severe physical injuries that nearly derailed her career.
When the Tokyo Games approached, Andrade wasn’t certain if she would be able to recover in time, but she went on to make history by securing gold in the vault and silver in the individual all-around, the first South American woman to do so. But, the story didn’t end there. Since her triumph in Tokyo, she’d only gotten better. In 2022, when Biles took a break from gymnastics to prioritize her mental well-being, Andrade stepped up to dominate the World Championships, winning the all-around and vault titles. And just when some might have thought she had reached her peak, she went on to win the vault title again in 2023.
On top of it all, Andrade proved that she wasn’t a one-event wonder. She’s a true jack-of-all-trades gymnast, having medaled in every single event – vault, floor, uneven bars, and beam – either at the World Championships or at the Olympics. This past Monday in Paris, she finished first and took home the gold medal in the floor final. This win comes after her securing silver in the all-around and vault, as well as bronze in the team event with Brazil that added to her growing collection of six Olympic medals and nine World Championships medals overall.
Bunk Beds and Big Dreams
Andrade was born and raised by her mother, Rosa Santos, in an overcrowded favela located in the outskirts of Guarulhos, São Paulo, along with her seven brothers. Her passion for gymnastics started at a young age when she would climb and hang upside down from the bunk beds she shared with her siblings.
Little did she know that those beds would be the starting point of an incredible journey.
Andrade was four years old when she began the sport. Her aunt, who worked at a gymnasium, brought her in for a gymnastics tryout and her natural talent was immediately recognized. She earned the nickname “Daianinha” or “mini Daiane,” a nod to the great Daiane dos Santos, the first-decorated Black Brazilian and South American gymnast in the sport.
For the next five years, Andrade trained at the same gymnasium where she was discovered. It was during this time that she honed her skills and laid the foundation for her future success.
The Road to Greatness
Andrade’s mother worked as a housekeeper and couldn’t always cover the cost of her daughter’s bus ticket to get to the gym. She would either loan Rebeca her bus pass and walk to work (Rebeca would commute with her older brother, Emerson) or they would just walk the two hours it took to get to the gym and back when there was no money for transportation.
“If I am not mistaken, the distance from our house to the gym was 6 or 7 kilometers [about 3 to 4 miles] with a lot [of hills] going up and down,” Emerson described in an interview last year. “When we would get there – to the gym, I would collect cardboard, [scrap] metal, those types of things, and I would sell it nearby and would save up a coin here and there until I started building a bike in a junkyard. So, on the days we didn’t have money [for bus tickets] – which were 90% or more [of the time] – we would ride the bike.”
“The hardest part was the financial aspect,” Andrade told Olympics.com. “I am very grateful to her and my sibling who made my dream possible.”
Andrade’s dreams also became a reality thanks to a program that provides sports scholarships to children from underserved backgrounds, called “Sports Initiation”, funded by the city of Guarulhos. While training there, she caught the attention of coach Mônica Barroso dos Anjos. After a year and a half of training, Andrade was placed in the “high-achieving group” which allowed the chance to compete in gymnastics competitions.
Andrade’s talent shone through in the 2009 Junior Pan-American Games, where she impressed the judges, and at just 10 years old, she was invited to join the Paraná Center for Excellence in Gymnastics to pursue professional training. This meant leaving her family behind and moving to neighboring Curitiba, Paraná.
Once she settled in, Andrade’s career really took off. At the young age of 11, she received an incredible offer to be coached by Flamengo, one of the top gymnastics clubs in the country. She has trained there for the past 14 years.
A Long History in the Making
Of Brazil’s 277-person team at the 2024 Paris Olympics, the women’s gymnastics squad is one of the most well-known and highly anticipated. However, this hasn’t always been the case for the sport in the country. Its journey in artistic gymnastics has been long and slow, spanning over two centuries.
According to The Brazilian Report, the world’s first gymnastics club in Brazil was established in early 19th century Germany by Friedrich Ludwig John, also known as the father of the sport. The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) was founded in 1881, and artistic gymnastics made its Olympic debut in 1896.
Although the first gymnastics competitions took place in Santa Catarina, located in the country’s South region in 1850, Brazil didn’t immediately develop a strong gymnastics culture. It wasn’t until a century later that the first Brazilian gymnastics tournament outside the South region took place. Luisa Parente is considered Brazil’s gymnastics pioneer, the first woman gymnast to compete in two Olympic Games in 1988 (Seoul) and 1992 (Barcelona). She also won two gold medals in the Pan American Games in 1991.
As Brazil’s infrastructure and conditions improved, so did their foundation in gymnastics.
Daiane dos Santos, a native of Porto Alegre, emerged as a national hero, holding the distinction of being not only the first Black gymnast to win an event at the World Championships (she took home the gold for the floor exercise in Anaheim in 2003), but she is also the first Brazilian and South American to win the competition. During her career, she racked up 16 medals, seven of which were gold.
Three-time Olympian and World Champion silver and bronze medalist Flávia Saraiva (another key member of the Brazilian women’s squad for Paris – she helped lead Brazil to its first-ever team medal last week), who, like Andrade, has also felt the positive impact of a philanthropic program. Called “Sports for All,” it is sponsored by the NGO QualiVida and was co-founded by Georgette Vidor (pictured below, surrounded by colleagues and students – she has used a wheelchair since a bus accident in 1997) in partnership with the Rio de Janeiro government.
The initiative aims to provide free gymnastics training twice a week to public school children throughout the state.
Stories like Andrade’s and Saraiva’s are incredibly inspiring for gymnasts in Brazil, and their resilience and achievements have made them role models for many. Still, Vidor stresses the fact that their success isn’t only a result of talent and hard work but also a little bit of luck. Gym access and government support are only available in states with big cities like São Paulo, Paraná, and Rio de Janeiro, so Vildor believes that Andrade and Saraiva were lucky to be born in the right places for gymnastics success.
“We miss out on thousands of talented kids in Brazil,” Vidor has said. “They can have all the talent in the world, but they are never discovered because they don’t even have a place to practice. Rebeca is certainly ahead of the curve. But we may never have found her if she was born somewhere else in the country.”
Money Matters
Looking at the fees for gymnastics classes, it’s clear how challenging it can be for families dealing with financial stress. In 2023, the monthly fee for 3 gymnastics lessons per week at Flamengo was $523 reais (about $92), 40% of the minimum monthly wage in Brazil, so low-income families like Andrade’s rely on programs that provide free training. Vidor, a trainer with over 40 years of experience, mentioned that before getting a club sponsorship, these kids greatly depended on social initiatives. Many of the top-performing gymnasts she’s trained over the years come from low-income backgrounds.
“Out of the 47 girls I am training right now, I can tell you that maybe 7 are middle-class, the rest are low-income. The majority of the girls here live in slums,” said the coach.
Vidor knows that financial stability is a big draw for many low-income youngsters who want to get into the sport, even though there are major obstacles in their way. For kids like Andrade who come from poverty, it’s a chance to escape their circumstances.
“Gymnastics is very tough. You don’t get holidays, you train on Saturdays, you have little vacation time. So, people in Brazil with a lot of money – they don’t want their kids to do gymnastics. They want to travel on weekends, they want long vacations. This doesn’t work in gymnastics,” explains Vidor. “So instead, you get parents who see gymnastics as a way for their kids to have a better life, to travel, to get better education, to have access to better doctors. It becomes a way to achieve their dreams.”
The Brazilian squad is known worldwide for their skill, determination, and sportsmanship. They’ve dominated the gymnastics scene for years, consistently ranking in the top 10 at the Olympics and the World Championships. As a matter of fact, before Simone Biles came along, Daiane dos Santos was the most dynamic female tumbler the world had ever seen. Like Biles, she has two-floor skills named after her, but unlike Biles, she spent much of her career competing under the old Perfect 10 system and was never fully rewarded for her superior skills and incredibly great difficulty.
Now, the spotlight is on Rebeca Andrade. This is her moment to continue unleashing her brilliance and letting her talent and determination propel her toward unprecedented success in the sport. At the 2023 World Championships, Biles was caught on camera playfully taking an imaginary crown off her head and putting it on Andrade.
The warm gesture was a powerful symbol of good sportsmanship, resilience, and the relentless pursuit of greatness. It was also well-deserved.
Congratulations, Rebeca! We’re excited to see what you have in store for us next!
