After announcing the Artistic Gymnastics youth teams as a priority for its current administration, Flamengo received a significant endorsement for its women's team. The competitive tryouts to determine the senior Brazilian team selected five Flamengo athletes from among the nine Brazilian gymnastics representatives, still in their youth ranks. In this same competition, Flamengo had the two highest-scoring athletes overall—Rebeca de Andrade, just 13, and Maria Cecília, 15. Milena Theodoro, Isabelle Cruz, and Letícia da Costa completed the group. The result confirms Flamengo's tradition as a training club and points to the wise decision of the new board.

 

According to the club's vice president of Olympic Sports, Alexandre Póvoa, "This call reveals that the criticism we received, some based on misinformation and others on opportunism, was not consistent enough to last even a week. The results achieved by our current artistic gymnastics team show that the path we planned is right. Flamengo continues to be an Olympic reference in Brazil. We will continue this effort, investing in the work and tradition of our base, with the responsibility of those who see no contradiction between developing great athletes, restoring structures, and paying salaries and taxes on time."

 

The Director of Olympic Sports, Marcelo Vido, emphasizes that "there are two factors for Flamengo's Olympic sports: the club's training schools, which currently serve two thousand members, and the youth teams, which work precisely on the training and development of young athletes. Today, Flamengo is focused on training Olympic athletes. The result of the Gymnastics trials is proof of this." 

 

Ana Paula Luck, coordinator of the sport at Flamengo, believes that the current group of youth athletes is one of the best in recent years. Girls still in their junior years are already competing professionally, on par with established gymnastics athletes.

 

"Today we have a group of 9 youth athletes and 2 adult athletes. We won 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th and 7th places in the first selection of the year. There are still three spots to be contested next month and Flamengo will have two strong names: Loranne Oliveira and Julie Kim, who are injured and could not participate in this first selection."

 

To the delight of all Flamengo fans today, the biggest promises of Brazilian Women's Gymnastics for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games are wearing the Flamengo shirt.