Rebeca Andrade, 27, one of the queens of world gymnastics, returns to top-level competition at the World Championships that begin in Rotterdam this Saturday. The Brazilian arrives as a favorite and as a woman, and an athlete, renewed after a pause of almost two years that she took to take care of her body and mind after winning six medals at the Olympic Games, four of them in Paris 2024. Andrade makes her debut starting Monday. On this occasion, he will compete in the jumping and balance beam specialties. Soil tests are ruled out. Since the gradual return began in June, the athlete insists that the goal is to enjoy every moment, not the medals. He has his sights set on Los Angeles 2028.
The Pan American Games, in their homeland, in Rio de Janeiro, marked the beginning of the return in June. This time, in Rotterdam, he will only compete in six series. Far from the 15 that the Flamengo club athlete competed three years ago, when she was only left out of one final and won five medals.
Andrade (Guarulhos, São Paulo; 155 centimeters) caressed the sky in Paris, her third Olympic Games after Tokyo 2021 and Rio 2016, where she debuted as a 17-year-old teenager. In the French capital, he competed on four machines and returned home with four medals: gold in the floor exercise, silver in the vault and in the individual general competition, and bronze in the team competition. Become the greatest Brazilian medalist in history. Already then he warned that it would be difficult for him to repeat the four devices in a competition.
After the spectacular triumph in Paris, the gymnast decided to stop, something she had been thinking about for some time. She took time for herself, to take care of herself, away from competition for the first time since she began her professional career as an adult. After a decade fully dedicated to winning titles and medals, she focused on her physical and mental health.
The pause has lasted almost two years. When he announced that he was giving up the previous World Cup, he expressed his satisfaction. "I'm resting. It's something very important for me. I wanted to do it for a long time, but I understood my priorities. So I ended up postponing it. For me, it's been wonderful," he told Globo. She continued training with her teammates, but at a different pace, with a different spirit. Going to the gym stopped being an obligation, a job, it was going to have fun.
Aline Wolff, the psychologist who works with the gymnast, explained the strategy, as stated this Friday in a statement reported by Globo Esporte: "This return is planned step by step to achieve readaptation. Sometimes, we must even strive to maintain this gradual nature and not skip stages. It is fundamental care to adapt the body and mind to that load, to that stimulus."
During the break, the Brazilian made a momentous decision: to abandon floor exercises. It was the most physically demanding for a professional who also suffers from the consequences of rupturing the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee, the most critical moment of her career. Five times I need to go into the operating room to reconstruct my knee. To the chagrin of his followers, resuming floor exhibitions is not part of his plans. "For me it is very important to understand my limits. And they must be respected," he declared in 2025 during an event in Rio. He trusts that this resignation will prolong his career and allow him to arrive in Los Angeles in optimal conditions.
Her compatriots embraced the multi-medalist Andrade with emotion and enthusiasm, a source of immense joy for Brazil in these years of disappointments in men's soccer. From Japan, he came in 2021 with a gold in colt and a silver in the individual eventing. She was two-time world champion on vault (2021, 2023) and individual world champion in 2022.
For Brazilian girls, especially black and mixed-race girls, Andrade is a heroine, she is a living example that her physiognomy can marry sports and artistic disciplines that were not usually considered suitable for children like them.
During these couple of years, the gymnast has dedicated herself to starring in advertising campaigns (menstruation pads, a bank, margarine...), as her social networks attest. And he has also had the opportunity to travel and dedicate time to his personal life.
