Rebeca Andrade: from Sao Paolo favela to Simone Biles's successor

The Brazilian is the first South American to be crowned the best gymnast on the planet, floating far above the field for all-around gold in Liverpool.

Andrade is a picture of power and poise, piercing a power structure that got used to excluding people like her.

Her journey from the Guarulhos favela in São Paulo to genuine national celebrity was never likely to be smooth.

Rebeca’s single mother had to walk three miles to work while her daughter spent days and nights climbing trees and doing cartwheels wherever she could.

Having left home at a tender age and suffered ACL tears in 2015, 2017 and 2019, Andrade has taken the scenic route to the summit of her sport.

“I have a psychologist who’s helped me since I was 13 years old, and this has made a big difference for me as a gymnast and a person,” she said.

“I have a lot of moments in my personal life too – my injuries, the things I needed to do to be here now.

“I always dreamed of being an Olympic and world champion, but when I was 10 years old and I had to leave home, I felt it was going to be really hard but that was when I believed I could do it.”

Brazil are no gymnastics superpower but neither are they minnows.

Andrade was nicknamed ‘Daianinha de Guarulhos’ as a youngster after the 2003 world floor champion Daiane dos Santos.

Jade Barbosa won Brazil’s first women’s all-around medal with a share of bronze in 2007 with Daniele Hypolito among a group of gymnasts who paved the way for Andrade's generation.

That is why Andrade dedicates her wins to ‘those who came before us' as the apotheosis of a legacy, no bolt from the south Atlantic blue.

She won Olympic gold on vault in Tokyo and was two missteps away from the all-around title, the first female athlete from Brazil to win multiple medals in any sport at a single Olympics.

The setbacks that have studded Andrade’s career lingered in Liverpool as she slipped on her second vault in qualification to miss the apparatus final.

Her vault in the all-around final was as good a nerve-settler as they come, earning a score of 15.166 that many felt should have been higher.

Andrade found the going tougher on uneven bars but excelled on beam, on which she counted a fall in the team final as Brazil finished fourth, and floor to take top step.

“It means a lot to me, because I can still compete after injuries and still show what I’m capable of,” she said.

Aged 23, she is every inch the modern female gymnast and sounds in the mood to continue until the Paris Olympics and beyond.

“I feel that I can show a lot more and keep doing gymnastics,” she said.

Biles and Sunisa Lee, who edged Andrade to all-around gold in Tokyo, are on indefinite, perhaps permanent, breaks from competition.

If they ever return they will find that gymnastics has changed forever, all thanks to a girl from Guarulhos who dared to dream.