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Rafaela Silva wins first gold of Rio 2016 for Brazil
Brazil was guaranteed at least one player as the host nation, though da Silva qualified on his own through the world ranking.
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Silva, a black woman who grew up on the Cidade de Deus slum, coincidentally located quite near the arena where she was crowned Olympic champion, overcame a number of challenges to be a professional judoka, and faced a string of racist threats when she was eliminated from the 2012 Games in London, which nearly made her abandon the sport.
The third day of Olympic competition featured a couple of notable firsts: Rafaela Silva captured host Brazil’s initial gold medal of the Rio Games and fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad became the only American ever to compete in the Olympics wearing a hijab.
She ended the London Olympics with disappointment, after which she suffered a barrage of insults on social media, where she was called a “monkey” and told that she needs to be placed in a cage.
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.
The rise has been meteoric since Ketleyn Quadros won Brazil’s first Olympic women’s judo medal in Beijing in 2008, taking under-57kg bronze. “It’s great for kids who are watching judo now”.
“I hope my medal now will open the door for Brazil to win many more medals”, Silva said after her win, according to the Associated Press.
RIO DE JANEIRO-A female athlete from the favelas won Brazil’s first gold medal of the Rio Games on Monday as Michael Phelps stepped up his campaign for yet more Olympic honours. After three minutes of the golden score period, Silva executed a flawless counterattack on Caprioriu.
She then left the mat in floods of tears before flopping into her coach’s arms. “But I think no one has trained more than me in this Olympic cycle”, reflected Rafaela. The people who saw my suffering daily know I did not like to train.
“I’m very happy about the result”. “I probably got to sleep at 3:00 am and was on an 11:00 am bus, so quick turn-arounds”, Phelps said.
“She’s a hero, coming from the poor area. I have to thank everyone who believed in me”.
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That was enough to hope for more, despite the unexpected loss of Sarah Menezes, who in 2012 brought home the Olympic gold with her for her country after beating the Olympic champion Alina Alexandra Dumitru of Romania in the women’s 48 kg judo match in London. 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 crushed her own world record in the 400 freestyle Sunday night, touching almost 5 seconds ahead of her closest pursuer. With neither judoka able to get a score in regulation, it went to a golden score period. The second bronze medal went to Kaori Matsumoto, who bested Lien Chen-Ling of Chinese Taipei.