Silva was born in Cidade de Deus, or City of God, the housing project in Rio de Janeiro that became notorious for social deprivation and gang violence. Her victory is regarded as an example of how sports can be life-changing for unprivileged children. Afterward, a tearful Szogedi said she was “gutted”.
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“On behalf of the sport of golf we are absolutely delighted to be here in Rio and returning to the Olympic Games after a long absence of 112 years”, Dawson told a press conference on Monday.
“She is from only about 10km from here, its fantastic, everybody knows her story”, said Patrick Gonçalves, an Olympic volunteer who had come to the arena just to watch Silva. The favela is still poor and violent.
Now she has a gold medal to show for all that suffering. The Japanese men’s team was shut out of gold medals at the London Games, the first time they had failed to win any events in the sport. She herself had got into fights with kids on many occasions. The Twitter war attracted so much attention that the Brazil Olympic Committee stepped in to admonish the attacks, and judo officials persuaded Silva to stop replying to bigoted critics. Fans jumped up and down, Brazil flags flapped and for a moment, Silva did not seem to know what to do.
On Monday she was interviewed on national television as she left the winning match.
“After my defeat in London, I thought about quitting judo and started doing work with my psychologist”, revealed the new champion. She was the 2013 world champion, but not the favourite.
“I intend on carrying on competing and my sister will continue in the Instituto Reacao to give back what people gave to us”. The others came thanks to Williams’ 37 unforced errors and 17 forced errors. “If I can compete at this level going through what I’ve gone through, I think I can do it again”. They won the world championships a year ago in Glasgow and finished second to China in both the 2014 worlds and the 2012 Olympics in London.
“The path getting here was tough, but it was worth it”, Rafaela Silva said afterwards.
It’s also where Brazilian judoka Rafaela Silva is from. “It’s hope for all of them”. It’s one of the most unsafe places in Rio de Janeiro. Because of its proximity to the Olympic competition venues, it received one of Brazil’s “pacification police” forces meant to displace the ruling drug gang, but that experiment in public security has fallen apart in recent months.
That moved Silva into the final against Mongolia’s Sumiya Dorjsuren, the world’s No. 1 ranked fighter in the weight class. Although Ms. Silva’s father, Luiz Silva, had stayed away from the early round, saying he was too nervous to watch, her parents were part of a heaving and screaming hometown crowd for the medal match.
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Ibtihaj Muhammad od the United States adjusts her hijab prior to competing with Olena Kravatska of Ukraine in the women’s individual saber fencing event at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, Aug. 8, 2016.
