Silva’s background, from being born in Rio’s notorious “City of God” will make her win be one of the stories of the Games.
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RIO DE JANEIRO – In Rio’s tough “City of God” slum, depicted in an acclaimed 2002 feature film, residents speak of their pride of the first Brazilian gold medalist, judoka Rafaela Silva, who grew up in this neighborhood controlled by drug gangs just a few kilometers from the Olympic Park.
Greater success followed for Japan as they finally claimed a first Rio 2016 gold medal in the judo courtesy of Shohei Ono in the under 73kg division.
And yet if she was feeling the pressure, she was doing a good job of hiding it. Her first match lasted only 46 seconds. “I said to myself that I can’t disappoint all those people who came to see me”.
“If it wasn’t for judo I could still be hanging around in Cidade de Deus rather than be here”.
After clinching gold, an emotional Silva made her way into the crowd to share the moment with the Brazilian fans in attendance.
Silva sank to her knees after winning the title with a half point waza-ari score from a leg reap counter attack, before leaping into the stands to hug her supporters. Silva’s tale is now worthy of reproduction in its own right. After seven minutes of competition (four minutes of regulation, plus three minutes of golden score time), Silva executed a ideal counterattack on Caprioriu, slamming the Romanian to the ground for the winning waza-ari. Now, four years after the gaffe that got her disqualified in London, she’s won gold in her hometown before the eyes of the world.
“She deserves this. She is a unique warrior”. And with the London 2012 48kg champion Sarah Menezes handed a shock quarter-final defeat on the first day of the Games, the hopes of the host nation rested on the women’s 57kg, and the powerful shoulders of Silva.
Meanwhile, Chen Aisen and Lin Yue won the men’s 10m platform diving for China, who finished day three with five gold medals in total.
Now she has a gold medal to show for all that suffering.
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The women’s bronze medals went to Kaori Matsumoto of Japan, the defending Olympic champion her friend from Portugal Telma Monteiro who finally achieved to cash in that medal that was missing. Simone Biles refers to them as her parents.
