Three days after winning Brazil's first women's artistic gymnastics medal, silver in the all-around, Flamengo's Rebeca Andrade continued the story she is writing at the Tokyo Olympics. In an even more exciting chapter, she won the gold medal in the vault competition this Sunday (1).

Rebeca is the first Brazilian to win two medals in the same Olympics. And she can still improve. The Flamengo athlete could win her third medal this Monday (2), when she competes in the floor final at 5:57 am with her “Baile de Favela”.

"My focus isn't on the medal, it's on putting on a good performance. Yesterday I was very happy. And that's the feeling I want to take into tomorrow," said Rebeca, evaluating Sunday's performance.

“They weren't my best jumps. But that's gymnastics. I got enough points to secure first place. I'm very, very happy! Now I have two!”

In the vault final, unlike the other apparatuses, each athlete performs twice, with vaults that must necessarily be different. Rebeca was third to perform and scored a 15.083, taking first place. Mykayla Skinner of the United States secured silver with a 14,916, and Seojeong Yeo of South Korea took bronze with a 14,733.

This was Rebeca's first time competing in a vault final at a major competition, but not for lack of talent. Since reaching the senior category in 2015, the year she turned 16, as required for women's artistic gymnastics, the Brazilian was either injured in major events or was rested precisely to avoid injury. She missed the 2015 and 2019 Pan American Games due to anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries in her right knee, as well as the 2015, 2017, and 2019 World Championships. She only competed in major competitions in even-numbered years, recovering from these injuries, which take six to eight months in sports with less impact on the knee, and even longer to perform exercises at the height Rebeca can reach.

To qualify for a diving final, two different dives are required in the qualifying round. This extra dive is valid for qualifying for the individual all-around and team final. To avoid putting her knee at risk, Rebeca didn't perform this extra dive either at Rio 2016, where she had the fourth-highest score in the qualifying round on her first dive, or at the 2018 World Championships, where her score was third-highest. Rebeca has now been injury-free for two years, and the coaching staff determined she was physically and mentally fit enough to perform a second dive in qualifying to reach the final and allow the Brazilian to compete for a medal today.