Rebeca Andrade: "I am an athlete who likes to compete"

After years filled with injury and disappointment, Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade is finally getting the chance to do what she loves the most: compete.

“I am an athlete who likes to compete, so I love going to competitions, because I like to think that in the competition you only do one routine and it's over,” said the Tokyo 2020 vault champion in an exclusive interview with Olympics.com earlier this summer.

“Because in training it's repeat, repeat and repeat, and in competition you just raise your arms and go.”

Gymnastics is a sport that requires repetition – and a lot of it. Over the years, the sport and the hours spent doing element after element seemed to be getting the better of Andrade.

Though she competed at Rio 2016, she missed the 2015 and 2017 World Championships with two separate ACL tears. A third ACL tear kept her out of the global championships in 2019.

So, when Andrade arrived healthy and on form at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, held in the summer of 2021, it might have been enough to send fans worldwide in search of wood to knock.

But it wasn’t magic or luck that brought Andrade to that moment. It was something much harder earned, the perspective of her previous injuries that informed a new training approach.

“[Francisco Porath], who is my coach, he understands very much that I am not the same athlete as when I was 15 years old. He understands that my body has changed a lot during that time, with all the injuries and everything,” explained Andrade.

“I can talk to him. If I come to a day when I'm not well inside the gym and say, ‘Chico, I'm not feeling well today.’ We can keep that vault for another day. I can do the floor routine another day, and he can understand that, and he knows that it's not laziness, that it's not fear, that it's really that I'm not feeling my body. And that's where sometimes something bad happens.”

Read more: Here is everything you need to know about this year's world championships.

'You train a lot to get to these competitions and be able to do your best'

Instead, a lot of good things have happened for Andrade.

Her gold medal in Tokyo was a first for a Brazilian woman in the sport. She also made history with her silver medal in the all-around, the first woman from South America to make it to that podium.

She won vault gold and uneven bars silver months later at the 2021 Worlds in Kitakyushu, Japan.

That she arrives to Liverpool as the clear favourite for all-around gold despite only having performed two floor routines all season long is a testament to both her innate ability and her careful approach.

In 2022, Andrade has competed at four events, including the recent World Cup in Paris where she claimed a silver medal on the bars. But in only one of those four outings, the Brazilian Championships, has she done the all-around, choosing to protect her body.

Her total score on the second day of her nationals, a 58.100, is the highest of the year, according to thegymter.net. She also has scores in the global top 10 on the uneven bars and floor exercise.

Her potential to win multiple gold medals at the worlds is probably far from her mind, however, with Andrade choosing to focus on the process before the results.

“We are very excited, because you train a lot to get to these competitions and be able to do your best. That's what I’ve said: I always want to show my consistency in my routines and everything I can really do,” she said. “The World Championship is for that, for us to get there and show what we trained.”

Content with Tokyo, Andrade eyes Paris

Andrade feels that is exactly what she did with her historic performance at the Tokyo Games.

“I did everything I could. I did my best there. I was glowing, people saw it in my eyes, you know? I literally did my best every day,” she recalled of her second Olympic appearance. “I did my best. There's nothing I would change.”

That doesn’t mean there isn’t more to accomplish.

The 23-year-old says continuing her career to Paris and a third Games has always been part of the plan.

“I always wanted to go to Paris, so I didn't have this doubt to say, 'Oh my God and now what am I going to do?’” Andrade explained. “I knew I wanted to go to Paris, so I had to go back, I had to go back well, training hard. But I already knew, I already had that goal of mine saved in my little diary.”

Her goals there are simple.

“I want to be happy. Happy and health,” she said. “Like I always say, the result is a consequence of what I did before. Sometimes, the best you wanted doesn't happen, you know. But if I'm happy, if I've been sure that I did my best inside on the floor, if I'm sure I wouldn't change anything, do anything differently, if I did my best technique, if I gave my best smile, if I was on my best day of joy and everything, I think it's worth it for me.

“Life is made of wins and losses,” she continued. “It's part of it, and I'm prepared for whatever may come. So, I really want to be happy. I want to be healthy to be able to do my best and show as much as I can to the world once again and be proud of the athlete that I am.”

After all, she’s proven the sky’s the limit when she does just that.