Topline
Brazilian gymnast Flavia Saraiva competed and won a bronze medal during the women’s team final at the Olympic Games on Tuesday with a bandaged face and black eye, having suffered a fall on the uneven bars during warmups just minutes before the competition began.
Flavia Saraiva performed on the uneven bars minutes after falling off during warmups. (Photo by … [+]
Key Facts
Brazil competed on the uneven bars during the first rotation, but Saraiva’s fall happened during warmups, so her scores were not impacted.
Despite the injury, Saraiva performed on all four events during the team competition, achieving a solid score of 13.666 on the uneven bars just minutes after she fell, the second-highest score for Brazil on bars.
Saraiva had a visible black eye while competing Tuesday, and wore a bandage across her right eyebrow, while some pictures of the gymnast performing with the injuries went viral on social media.
News Peg
Saraiva helped lead Brazil to its first-ever team medal in women’s gymnastics at the Olympics on Tuesday. The team claimed the bronze medal with a total score of 164.497 points, behind the United States, which won gold with 171.296 points, and Italy, which won silver with 165.494 points. Brazil just edged out Great Britain, which placed fourth with 164.263 points. Saraiva competed on all four events during the team final alongside Rebeca Andrade, considered one of the best gymnasts in the competition and the biggest threat to American gymnast Simone Biles. The Brazilian team improved upon its fourth-place finish in the qualification round.
Key Background
Saraiva previously competed at the 2016 Olympic Games in her native Brazil and at the 2020 Olympics, held in 2021 in Tokyo. She has represented Brazil at the world championships five times, winning a silver medal with the team and a bronze medal on floor exercise in 2023.
Further Reading
Simone Biles And Her Toughest Competitor, Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, Face Off In Team Competition (Forbes)
Conor Murray is a reporter covering trends in entertainment and culture. He is based in Jersey City and joined Forbes in 2022. Murray has covered the messy rollout for Kanye West’s latest album, the Stanley water bottle craze and right-wing backlash against companies deemed “woke.” He previously covered billionaires with the Forbes wealth team and covered pop culture and TikTok trends for NBC News. He graduated with a degree in political science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2022. Follow Murray for continued coverage of social media trends, celebrity controversies and the movie and music industries.
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