Older athletes changed women’s gymnastics

Andrade, Saraiva and Andrade: Why do so many girls come to Brazil in gymnastics even when they are born in a poor country?

“We miss out on thousands of talented kids in Brazil,” Vidor 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,” said Vidor. Beresford is ahead of the curve. She may not have been found if she was born somewhere else in the country.

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 three gymnastics lessons at Flamengo in 2023 was about 92 reais. The minimum monthly wage in Brazil is 40%. So, low-income families like Andrade’s have to rely on programs that offer free training. Before you can get a club sponsorship, you have to support initiatives that allow low-income kids to train for free.

I can tell you, out of the 47 girls I have training, 7 are middle-class, the rest are low-income. The coach said that most girls here live in slums.

Vidor believes that the potential for financial stability is what attracts so many low-income kids to the sport despite the barriers to entry. For those who come from poverty, like Andrade, it represents a way out.

There is a lot of talent and hard work in Andrade’s success, but also some luck, according to Vidor. It is difficult to get to a good gym and government support in states like So Paulo and Paran. The place where Saraiva and Andrade were born was the best place to succeed in gymnastics.

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. She had to move with her family to Paran.

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 thought it would improve the lives of her entire family.

Rebeca’s mother, who worked as a maid, would not always be able to pay for her daughter’s gym ticket. The mother of the siblings couldn’t afford to pay for a bus ticket, so they had to walk two hours to get to her gym.

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and recipes psyched Rebeca Andrade up to best Simone Biles

And rightfully so. The U.S. gymnasts haven’t won a gold medal since 2012 and only one of them, Andrade, has gotten a medal since. She was overcome with emotion as the Brazilian anthem was played for the first time on a gymnastics podium.

But it is a friendly rivalry. During a press conference last week, Biles said of Andrade: “She’s very close to me — I’ve never had an athlete so close.”

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. There is a show called Grey’s Anatomy. In my dream, I imagined that I was a doctor.

Source: How ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and recipes psyched Rebeca Andrade up to best Simone Biles

A gymnast’s first experience with gymnastics, according to Andrade, whose nickname he first learned about gymnasts, Dr. Amy Oelschlager

The gymnast says that her first experience with “acrobatics” came when she climbed and hung upside down from the bunk beds she shared with her siblings. The bunk beds were where it started, according to Andrade.

Right away, Andrade was noticed for his natural talent. After her impressive tryout, she earned the nickname “Daianinha” or “mini Daiane” — a reference to Daiane dos Santos, a famous Brazilian gymnast who was the first Black woman and first South American to win a gymnastics medal in the 2003 World Championships.

When the bones are beginning to grow during puberty, there are growth plates open and the plates don’t close until there are healthy levels of estrogen in the body.

Dr. Amies Oelschlager said that a gymnast who is competing in the Olympics has healthy bones that have been able to fully mature.

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’s a different psychological mindset.”

UCLA coach McDonald returned recently from the Olympic Games in Paris where she was coaching UCLA athlete Emma Malabuyo who was competing for the Philippines.

Gymnastics of the Golden Era: A New Era for Women’s Gymnastics: From Gymnastics to Olympic Games to High Performance Gymnastics

She welcomes this new era in women’s gymnastics with a large roster of athletes competing at the highest levels. Gymnasts enjoy the sport 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 hardest vault in women’s gymnastics, a Yurchenko double pike requires tremendous abdominal and leg muscles and Jordan Chiles throws a double-Twisting Yurchenko, making it the hardest vault in the world.

That includes five moves the International Gymnastics Federation code of points has named after Simone Biles that demonstrate the 27-year-old gymnast’s power, strength, and precision.

“In the past, this is when you saw a lot of athletes drop out of the sport,” said McDonald. They were not allowed to let their bodies grow and change.

Female gymnasts feared puberty since getting a period meant growing taller and gaining weight, so they wanted to be young and stay small.

The head coach of the University of California, Los Angeles women’s gymnastics team said gymnasts of the ’80s and ’70s looked the same.