Life in the Slums: Lifting a Child to Excellence in Gymnastics to Help His/Her Families in Guarulhos, So Paulo

One of 8 children raised by a single mother, Rebeca Andrade grew up in a favela in the outskirts of Guarulhos, São Paulo — one of many overcrowded slums with houses that look like shacks near Brazil’s city centers.

You only need to look at the fees for gymnastics classes to understand the obstacles for families who face financial stress. The monthly fee for 3 gymnastics lessons at Flamengo was about $90 when it was done in 2023. That’s the equivalent of 40% of the minimum monthly wage in Brazil. So, low-income families like Andrade’s have to rely on programs that offer free training. Before a club sponsorship is obtained, you need social initiatives to allow low-income kids to train for free.

Of the 47 girls I am training, 7 may be middle-class, the rest are low-income. The majority of the girls here live in slums,” said the coach.

Despite the challenges, there are so many low-income kids who are drawn to the sport because of the potential for financial stability. For those who come from poverty, like Andrade, it represents a way out.

Andrade’s success has been very motivating to the kids Vidor is training, who all watched Brazil win their first Olympic team medal on Thursday. The girls in the gym were excited and jumping around. It is so important for them to see this,” she said. “They dream of having a better life through the sport.”

After wowing judges in the 2009 Junior Pan-American Games, Andrade, who was then about 10 years old, was invited to join the Paraná Center for Excellence in Gymnastics to train professionally. This required her to move to the neighboring state, Paraná, without her family.

In a 2021 interview, Andrade explained that moving states as a child didn’t scare her. She said she did everything with a lot of love, because she wanted to improve the lives of her entire family.

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“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,” said Rebeca’s older brother, Emerson Rodrigues, in an interview in 2023. I used to collect cardboard, scrap metal, and those types of items when I was in the gym, and I would save up a few coins before I started building my bike in a junkyard. We used to ride the bike on those days when we didn’t have money for bus tickets.

Brazil’s “golden girl” had previously won one gold medal on vault in Tokyo, where then-favorite Biles withdrew from the competition. This gold is an extra special one, as it shows how good Andrade can be despite the fact that she is not a very good gymnast.

Georgette Vidor, a gymnastics coach at the club in Rio de Janeiro where Andrade currently trains, sees a lot of similarities between the two athletes: “[Andrade and Biles] are competitors, not rivals. They are two black women who are the greatest gymnasts in the world right now. “They have a beautiful story of resilience.”

The newly crowned gold medalist revealed a perhaps surprising way that she psyches herself up. Earlier this week, Andrade was asked what she thinks about before competitions. She replied, “I was thinking about the recipes that I will make when I get back to Brazil.”

“Today, I wasn’t thinking about recipes because I watched a lot of TV shows [episodes] yesterday,” said Andrade after winning the event. “So I dreamed of the show I was watching. I was watching. Grey’s Anatomy is a medical show. So I dreamed that I was a doctor, that I was operating and so on.”

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The gymnast says that her first glimpse of arrogance came when she hung upside-down from the bunk beds she shared with her siblings. Andrade has said those bunk beds are where it all began.

Andrade’s natural talent was noticed right away. Daiane dosSantos, a famous Brazilian gymnast who was the first Black woman and first South American to win a gymnastics medal in the 2003 World Championships, inspired her to become the nickname of “mini Daiane” after her impressive tryout.

It is vital for girls to gain high levels of Testosterone during puberty to build muscle mass and to gain bone density, according to Dr. Anne-Marie Amies Oelschlager.

“The nice thing about delaying the age of entry into the Olympic gymnastics is that when people are competing, like Simone Biles, she has healthy bones that have been able to fully mature,” said Dr. Amies Oelschlager.

Training and performing an elite sport as an adolescent under duress because of pressure from coaches and parent is far different than an “25-year-old saying, ‘I’m going to do this. This is my choice and I’m going to keep going,’” said Amies Oelschlager. It is a different psychological mindset.

McDonald was in Paris to coach Emma Malabo who was competing for the Philippines at the Olympic Games.

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She welcomes this new era in women’s gymnastics with a large roster of athletes competing at the highest levels. Gymnasts are enjoying the sport more because they can use their voice, show their personality and have a say in their training.

For instance, on floor, Biles executes a tumbling pass that ends in a triple double — two flips and three full twists. The Yurchenko double pike is the hardest vault in women’s gymnastics and requires tremendous abdominal and leg muscles as well as speed.

The gymnastics federation named five of the moves after Simone Biles to show her power, strength and precision.

“In the past, this is when you saw a lot of athletes drop out of the sport,” said McDonald. “Because they weren’t being given the grace to let their bodies grow and change.”

The pressure to make it young and stay small was so great that female gymnasts were afraid of puberty.

“If you look earlier in the ’80s [and] ’70s, a lot of gymnasts looked the same,” said Janelle McDonald, the head coach of women’s gymnastics at the University of California, Los Angeles.