Do we like them?

Do we like Rebeca Andrade?

Our score: 8 out of 10. Decent and on the right side, with no harmful words or acts found, though the public record on her wider views is fairly thin.

Andrade grew up in a favela on the outskirts of Guarulhos, outside São Paulo, raised by a single mother who worked as a maid. She says her first tumbling came from hanging upside down off the bunk beds at home. When bus fare was short, she and an older brother walked about two hours each way to the gym.

A city-funded sports scheme got her started, and by about ten she'd moved to Curitiba to train. Flamengo's junior team then came calling. She told NPR she saw the move as a way to improve life for her whole family, so she threw herself into it.

At Tokyo 2020 she won the all-around silver, the first Olympic medal ever by a Brazilian woman gymnast, and then gold on vault. NPR described her as a Black woman from a poor, working-class neighbourhood, and a symbol of what can be done against the odds.

Paris 2024 is where the world really fell for her. She beat Simone Biles to the floor gold, and Biles and bronze medallist Jordan Chiles bowed to her on the podium. She'd earlier said of Biles, “I'm fighting with me to be my best myself.”

The good stuff is her sportsmanship and her story. She's been openly supportive of her biggest rival, urging Biles not to retire, and she won the Laureus Comeback of the Year award in 2025. On accepting it, she said she felt very happy and honoured to receive her first Laureus. We found no court cases, doping findings or credible misconduct allegations against her.

The latest chapter is the best. After two years away, she came back and took the vault title in Rotterdam in October 2026, with Biles watching from the stands. Plenty of tabloid noise about her private life has floated around this year, but that's her business and not part of this check.