Not once or twice, Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade tore her ACL thrice. The first of those happened in 2015 when Rebeca had to miss the World Championships that year. She came back in 2016 and helped Brazil to qualify for the Olympics. 2017 was supposed to be her year when she came to the World Championships as one of the main contenders for an all-around medal. However, she re-injured the same ACL while in Montreal and had to withdraw from the competition.
In 2018, she was still recovering from that injury and could not compete in the all-around at Worlds. She came back to the all-around in the beginning of 2019 and earned a massive 56.932 score at the DTB-Pokal Team Challenge. However, the season was cut short after she sustained another ACL injury (to the same knee) during her floor routine in qualification at the Brazilian Nationals. She needed another surgery to repair the ligament and was scheduled to return to training in about six months, which took her out of Worlds, jeopardizing Brazil’s chances of qualifying in the Tokyo Olympics.
But Rebeca was not the one to back out. The qualification eventually came at a do-or-die Pan American Championships in June 2021. “I’ve overcome a lot of things and each time I overcame something tough, I was more determined to come back, I wanted to win even more. And I believe it won’t be different,” Rebeca had said about coming back repeatedly. The valiant effort did not go in vain as she picked up the vault gold in Tokyo. But there was a little something that probably remained unattained there.
Simone Biles had withdrawn from the competition for her ‘twisties.’ So Rebeca had that so-called unfinished business at her hand in Paris. This time, she held off the GOAT, picking up the gold medal in the floor exercise routine. Now, seven months after her heroics in Paris, Rebeca stands on the verge of having a huge recognition for all she has done make her way through the debacles.
