The Impact of the Potential for Financial Stability in Gymnastics Programs for Low-Income Kids: An Example from a Surviving Child in Brazil
There are thousands of talented children in Brazil. They don’t even have a place to practice, but can have all the talent in the world. “Rebeca is certainly ahead of the curve. If she was born in another country, we would never have found her.
You only need to look at the fees for gymnastics classes to understand the obstacles for families who face financial stress. The monthly fee for three gymnastics lessons per week at Flamengo was nearly $100 in the year 2023. The minimum monthly wage in Brazil is 40%. The programs that offer free training have to be relied on by low-income families. Before you get a club sponsorship, you have to use social initiatives that allow low-income kids to train for free.
Some of the girls I am training may be middle class, but the rest are low-income. The coach said that the majority of the girls live in slums.
It is believed that the potential for financial stability is the factor that attracts low income kids to the sport. Andrade comes from poverty and it is an example of a way out.
Born and raised at a Brazilian gymnast, Andrade Rodrigues (Rosa Rodriguez): from bunk beds to global fame
Practicing for years and years allows gymnasts to perfect their timing and body awareness, and “as you go through puberty,” she added, “you actually get stronger, you get more powerful, you have that ability to do some of the skills that we’re seeing the athletes perform.”
So how did she go from bunk beds to global fame? According to an interview with a Brazilian news outlet, the mother of the gymnast,Rosa Rodrigues, said that her aunt started working at the gym the same week they were holding gymnastics try outs. Their aunt brought them with her.
In a 2021 interview, Andrade explained that moving states as a child didn’t scare her. “I saw it as a way to improve the lives of my entire family, so I did everything with a lot of love,” she recalled.
The distance from the house to the gym was 6 or 7 kilometers, with a lot of hills going up and down, according to Rebeca’s older brother. “When we would get there — to the gym, I would collect cardboard, [scrap] metal, those types of things, and I would sell it nearby and would save up a coin here and there until I started building a bike in a junkyard. We used to ride the bike on days we didn’t have money for bus tickets.
How ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and recipes psyched Rebeca Andrade up to best Simone Biles
This Monday, Andrade was one of the first gymnasts to perform her floor routine, earning a 14.166 score. She said on camera she thought she got that one after the performance. I think Rebeca got this one. And saying “Oh, I’m afraid.”
But it’s a friendly rivalry. During a press conference last week, the gymnast said that she had never had an athlete so close to her.
The newly crowned gold medalist revealed a perhaps surprising way that she psyches herself up. Earlier this week, Andrade was asked what she thinks about before competitions. She replied, “I was thinking about the recipes that I will make when I get back to Brazil.”
After winning the event, she said that she was not thinking about recipes because she had watched a lot of TV yesterday. I dreamed of the show I was watching. I was watching it. A show about doctors named Grey’s Anatomy. So I dreamed that I was a doctor, that I was operating and so on.”
Source: How ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and recipes psyched Rebeca Andrade up to best Simone Biles
Dos Santos es Belajarda: Delaying the Olympic Games for a Black American Gymnast and an Olympic Olympian
The gymnast says that she got her first exposure to drunkenness when she climbed and hung upside down from the bunk beds with her siblings. Those bunk beds are where it all began according to Andrade.
Right away, he was noticed for his natural talent. After her impressive tryout, she earned the nickname “Daianinha” or “mini Daiane” — a reference to Daiane dos Santos, a famous Brazilian gymnast who was the first Black woman and first South American to win a gymnastics medal in the 2003 World Championships.
Puberty is a critical time for growth: Testosterone levels increase in girls which helps to build muscle mass; and girls gain high levels of estrogen which helps to build bone density, said Dr. Anne-Marie Amies Oelschlager, a pediatric and adolescent gynecologist at the University of Washington who works with young athletes.
“The nice thing about delaying the age of entry into the Olympic gymnastics is that when people are competing, like Simone Biles, she has healthy bones that have been able to fully mature,” said Dr. Amies Oelschlager.
Training and performing an elite sport as an adolescent under duress because of pressure from coaches and parent is far different than an “25-year-old saying, ‘I’m going to do this. This is my choice and I’m going to keep going,’” said Amies Oelschlager. There is a different psychological mindset.
UCLA coach McDonald returned recently from the Olympic Games in Paris where she was coaching UCLA athlete Emma Malabuyo who was competing for the Philippines.
Alumnus McDonald: The New Era in Gymnastics for Women’s Gymnastics and a Coach from the University of California, Los Angeles
She welcomes this new era in women’s gymnastics with a large roster of athletes competing at the highest levels. Gymnasts enjoy the sport more due to the fact that they have a say in their training, can use their voice, and show their personality.
On floor, a tumbling pass ends in a triple double, with two flips and three full twists. On the vault, Biles performs a Yurchenko double pike, the fastest vault in women’s gymnastics that requires tremendous abdominal and leg muscles, as well as Jordan Chiles throwing a double twisting Yurchenko.
That includes five moves the International Gymnastics Federation code of points has named after Simone Biles that demonstrate the 27-year-old gymnast’s power, strength, and precision.
McDonald said that in the past a lot of athletes dropped out of the sport. They weren’t being given the time to grow and change.
The pressure to make it young and stay small was intense: Female gymnasts feared going through puberty since getting a period meant growing taller and gaining weight.
A lot of gymnasts look the same from the ’80s and ’70s, according to a coach at the University of California, Los Angeles.