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There are two additional medal opportunities
for the 22-year-old in apparatus finals after she placed third
on the vault and fourth on the floor exercise in qualification.
Andrade travelled to the Tokyo Games without her team, which
failed to qualify after four straight Olympic appearances.
However, fellow Brazilian Flavia Saraiva, 21, secured a spot in
the balance beam finals.
It has not been an easy road for Andrade, who in mid-2019 tore
her anterior cruciate knee ligament for the third time in four
years. Those injuries had kept her out of three of the four
World Championships for which she was eligible.
She remained focused on Tokyo, making a strong comeback in early
2020 at an Olympic-qualifying World Cup event, only for the
finals to be cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Despite having to train for some time in Portugal due to
coronavirus restrictions in her own country, Andrade punched her
individual ticket to Tokyo last month with an all-around win at
the Pan American Championships.
“Thank you for all the positive energy, thank you for believing
in me at all costs,” she excitedly told her fans on Instagram
last month, accompanied with a picture of a mid-air victory
leap.
Andrade qualified for the all-around finals in Tokyo in second
spot behind U.S. favourite Simone Biles, who has withdrawn from
Thursday’s competition to focus on her mental health.
American Sunisa Lee, who qualified third overall, will be among
Andrade’s biggest challengers along with Russian duo Angelina
Melnikova and Vladislava Urazova. Those four finished within 0.3
points of one another in qualifying, a margin equivalent to a
large step on a single landing.
If Andrade can snag gold on Thursday, she would be the oldest
female all-around champion at the Olympics since 1968, as all
but one winner since then have been younger than 20.
Brazilian men have previously won four Olympic artistic
gymnastics medals, all for individual apparatus. The men’s team
qualified for Tokyo but failed to reach the team final.
Brazil’s medal hopes are still alive in the men’s apparatus
finals as Caio Souza has advanced on vault. Arthur Zanetti, who
holds Brazil’s sole gold medal after his performance on rings at
the London 2012 Games, will appear in the rings final. Zanetti
also won a silver on rings at Rio 2016.
(Reporting by Karen Braun in Fort Collins, Colo.; Editing by
Toby Davis)
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