Brazil's Yasmim Soares: From traffic warden to Olympic rugby star

It's Brazil versus Fiji in the women's rugby sevens tournament at Paris 2024. There are only a few seconds left on the clock, with the winner getting to play for ninth place. The South Americans are down by a point. They have possession but are under pressure from the Fijians, less than a metre from their in-goal line.

"This is a very dangerous situation, Brazil has 100 meters to go here," said commentator Hans Frauenlob, on the Olympic Channel Services feed.

The full-time siren sounds meaning the next time the ball goes dead, the game is over.

The only thing left to do for the "Yaras" (Brazil's nickname) was to get creative.

Yasmim Soares, positioned in the corner of the pitch, is the last and only alternative to keep the play alive. She receives the ball despite being marked by a defender.

With seemingly no options, she does something magical. Using lightning-quick footwork, she sends her marker the wrong way and a space clears in front of her.

The flying winger pins her ears back and sprints 95 metres to score the winning try for her country, sending the 80,000 fans in the Stade de France wild.

It was a moment that encapsulated Yasmim's life. The 25-year-old from Rio de Janeiro has constantly overcome obstacles and had to run without looking back in search of her dreams, and succeeded when there was seemingly little hope.

Inspired to become an Olympian by Rafaela Silva

Soares spent her childhood playing games with other kids in the streets of Cidade de Deus (City of God), a neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro known for its social issues and lack of opportunities.

She discovered handball at the age of 12 and two years later, she was introduced to athletics.

“I was tested a lot and did well in everything. I liked heptathlon because you have to keep a high level across many sports and, in the end, do well in an 800-meter event. I like challenges,” Soares told Olympics.com.

She combined the two sports for many years and represented Rio de Janeiro team in the Brazilian High School Games.

To support herself, she worked in a clothing store and sold sweets at the crowded bus lines that ran between the neighborhoods of Taquara and Freguesia. When she got home, Soares' grandmother Aurileia, who raised her, would buy what her granddaughter didn't manage to sell.

“The funniest thing is that there were times when the fridge was full of candy, because my grandmother bought it so I wouldn't have to walk around the streets too much," she revealed.

Soares' passion for sports meant that she always watched the Olympic Games on TV and was convinced that competing in them was her destiny.

“I saw my grandmother cheering for [judoka] Rafaela Silva, also from Cidade de Deus, in Tokyo 2020, and I thought: ‘Wow, will I ever be able to be there? Will someone one day shout for me too? You know that thing about when you dream and want to experience it?’”

However, the talented youngster eventually abandoned sport and became a traffic warden to help with household expenses: “It got to a point where it was no longer possible, I could no longer take from where I didn’t have anything.”

New job and new sport: opportunities for a new life

“There was a course on road operations. I decided to take it and I excelled, the only one to be offered a registered job as a traffic warden,” Soares said.

It was an exhausting routine. She would arrive for work at 2:00 pm and leave at 10:00 pm, eventually returning home around midnight.

After growing tired of her new lifestyle she decided to try a new sport.

“One day a friend said to me: ‘Yasmim, I discovered a sport that is just like you, it has a bit of handball and athletics’, and we agreed to go together.”

Curious, she went to the training to see what it was all about alone as her friend didn't come.

“I saw the guys hugging each other and I said: ‘My God, what could this be?’”

It was rugby and they were training in a scrum.

Soares joined in and afterwards, the coach Marcel Santos asked for her to return tomorrow.

"I came back and I never stopped,” she laughed.

“They said: ‘Don’t let anyone touch you and when you have the ball, don’t let anyone catch you.’ And I managed to run away from people.

"The guys really embrace you and make you want to be there. It’s respect, it’s values. I started to like it and really compete.”

It was in stark contrast to what she was experiencing as a traffic warden.

“One day a driver wanted to make an illegal turn, he didn’t accept my instructions and swore at me a lot, I felt very uncomfortable,” she recalled. There she was shown a lack of respect and solidarity, two values ​​that rugby taught her every day. “I didn’t want to be in the middle of the street and exposed to different situations. I needed to get out of there.”

Rugby quickly became the 22-year-old's refuge. She started playing for El-Shaddai club in tournaments and attracting the attention of clubs and coaches, eventually making it to the Rio de Janeiro district team.

Before leaving for work, Soares used to pray. On one occasion, she shared her dream of playing sports.

Soon after, she ran into her old athletics coach, Felipe França, who stopped her for a chat.

“He was like an angel. Out of the blue, he said to me: ‘I have something really good for you, OK? I have something really good coming for you,’” Soares said.

It was an invitation to be a professional rugby athlete for club Melina, in the state of Mato Grosso, 2,000 kilometers from home. Without hesitation, she accepted.

“It was something that could change my life,” she reasoned.

Yasmim Soares: Being better on and off the pitch

On the field, Soares' speed made her a natural fit to play on the wing. She made her debut for the Brazil women's national 15s team in November 2022, scoring a spectacular length-of-the-field try in a 25-17 loss to Colombia.

Her performance led to an invitation to join the team's core athletes in São Paulo. It took her a while to accept, but she joined them two-and-a-half years later, representing the Yaras in both sevens and 15s.

Things were looking up off-field too. Soares resumed her studies and began learning English.

“It was all my will. I always put pressure on myself to finish my studies, it was something that bothered me. But everyone has their own time for everything, I never compared myself to others. I am looking to be a better athlete and a better human being,” she explained.

After school, she wants to go to university.

“I want to study psychology. It is a very necessary area for high performance. I am very close to my psychologist. She helps me a lot.”

“I will be the first person in my family to have a college degree."

With the sevens team, she won bronze at the 2023 Pan-American Games in Chile before being named in the Paris 2024 Olympic team.

“It was a dream come true, a magnificent thing. And a bit of pressure, right? Representing Brazil on the main stage of sport”, she said.

Yasmim Soares: ‘You can be that light at the end of the tunnel’

Soares' story serves as inspiration for thousands of young people in Brazil and around the world who suffer from a lack of opportunities in life.

“I think that’s priceless. You can inspire new stories, new paths and be that light at the end of the tunnel”, she reflected. “But it’s a good responsibility. God doesn’t give us a burden that we can’t carry."

The Brazilian rugby star is paving the way for others in the same way she does in rugby, creating spaces for her teammates to take advantage of.

That’s what she did in front of 80,000 people at the Stade de France, who were shouting for her during Paris 2024.

“Rugby changed my life in every way. It shaped me, it polished me. It gave me access to things that perhaps working in other jobs would be harder to get,” she said.

“But I don’t like to look back and regret. I like to take the cool details and say: ‘I learned from this’. You lose, you win, but you always grow.”