Rebeca Andrade charmed the audience with her Beyonce floor routine, but now she turned to Brazilian rhythms with a new floor that incorporates “Baile de favela” a local hit representing the Brazilian funk genre.
She told Odia that the choreographer surprised her with “Baile de Favela”:
“The last quad, my routine was set to Beyoncé, I was a huge fan. This time he did the same thing: ‘I’m done with your music.’ It started with a church organ and then it became ‘Baile de favela’. I said: ‘Roni, this is Brazilian funk.’ At first, it was very difficult because I had to go from Beyoncé to funk, they are very different. It’s a Brazilian rhythm, something that not everyone likes. But I liked it a lot.”
Andrade did not compete floor at Worlds in Doha while still recovering from her 2017 knee injury, so she unveiled her new floor this season, at the DTB-Pokal Team Challenge which Brazil won. Andrade won AA with 55.100 and had 56.932 in qualification:
“I was very happy with the scores I got [in Stuttgart], but I can do better. I’m just thinking about getting there and doing what I’ve been training to do. [At Worlds] I want the team to qualify [to Tokyo] and do well at qualifications. Medals will come if I do my best.”
Andrade says her mother was her biggest cheerleader who helped her get through the training and the surgeries. Andrade, one of seven siblings, had to live separately from her family from a very young age, but they provide her with constant support:
“I talk a lot to my mom. I thought about giving up many times. Recovery was better the second time around. The first time was very painful. The next time I was already mentally prepared to what I was going to go through. When I talk to my mother it’s like everything is going to be all right. She says I have unwavering strength and faith. I held on to that and I am very religious.”
It was her mother that made her overcome the fear of having her career threatened by injuries:
“I saw the girls training and I couldn’t see myself doing floor again. My legs were thin, I had no strength. One day I talked about this with my mom and she said: ‘How can you be sure you won’t be able to do it? You didn’t even try. I believe in you.’ My coach also helps me a lot and he understands me well. There were a lot of people helping me. I couldn’t just give up after working hard for so long.”
Rebeca learned to deal with being away from home from a very young age. When she was 10 she moved to Curitiba to train, and later moved to Rio with her coaches. She started gymnastics because of an aunt who worked at a gym in Guarulhos:
“I was a very active kid. I liked to climb trees. My aunt took me there and they liked me. To me, it was like a playground. We didn’t always have the money to go to training. There was a time when my brother got a bike and he would take me on his bike to training. My house was very far from the gym. He did anything for me. There was a very steep hill and he wouldn’t let me get off the bike to walk it up. He would push the bike until we got to the gym. They did so much for me. I will never be able to give it back to them. They did it with love and care.”
Translation from Portuguese by Clara Silva.
