Overcoming poverty in Brazil’s most notorious favela, the “City of God” Silva took up the sport because she loved- and had to- fight.
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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 11/08/2016.
With the revelation by Brazil’s first gold medalist at the Olympics that she is gay, a new record has been set for sports inclusion: 48 out Olympians are competing in the summer games in Rio de Janeiro.
She won her medal in the 57k (125 pounds) category in women’s judo on Monday (August 8), tweeting afterwards: “ITS GOLD!”
“I was out in the community all this year”.
“We don’t speak about that because there’s no reason”, she said. I couldn’t do soccer so I went to judo.
Four years ago, she experienced racism from her fellow Brazilians after being disqualified from the 2012 London Olympics for a banned leg grab. “I am not generalizing because there are people like that, I’m afraid”.
Like Silva, swimmer Joanna Maranhao has also hit back at people who had passed sexist comments after she crashed out of Rio failing to win 200m butterfly.
“[But] when I lost the Olympic Games I had a message from Neymar and other legends and they said that I should not give up”.
“I want to see black legislators, senators, governors, doctors, engineers, judges, state ministers”, said the official, Luislinda Valois, who became Brazil’s first black judge.
“And so if my medal could touch people’s emotions who still do not understand the spirit of the Olympics, I believe this is what I can convey winning the gold medal”, she said.
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“We have some local athletes that recognize me and I want to go back to my (favela) and be received in the way that I am being received now in the streets of the Olympic Park”.
