 Leal at 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Birth name | Jhulia Rayssa Mendes Leal | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nickname | Fadinha (Little Fairy) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 4 January 2008 Imperatriz, Maranhão, Brazil | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 4 ft 10 in (1.47 m) [1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Country | Brazil | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Skateboarding | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Jhulia Rayssa Mendes Leal (born 4 January 2008) is a Brazilian professional skateboarder who won a silver medal in women's street skateboarding at the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Leal was born and lived in Imperatriz, the second largest city in Maranhão, and alternates school studies with training. She started training the sport at the age of six, after getting her first skateboard on her 6th birthday, a gift from a family friend. [2]
Leal first gained attention at the age of seven in internet videos of her skating in a tutu and jumping off tall structures on her skateboard. Leal's mother filmed the video on September 7, 2015, and sent it to American professional skateboarder Tony Hawk. The next day, Hawk reposted on Twitter and commented: "I don't know anything about it, but it's amazing: a fairytale-style heelflip in Brazil". At that time, he always made a post with the best maneuver of the day. [3] [4] She was dubbed "A Fadinha do Skate", translated roughly as "The Little Fairy of Skateboarding". [5] [6]
Mendes Leal competed in the 2019 Street League Skateboarding Championship in London, placing third with a score of 26.0, finishing above Alexis Sablone, Letícia Bufoni, and other skaters but behind fellow Brazilian Pamela Rosa and Australia's Hayley Wilson. [7] [8] In July 2019, she placed first at the Street League Skateboarding Championship in Los Angeles, leading the podium ahead of Pamela Rosa and Alana Smith. [9] Also in 2019, she won a fourth place for her first X Games appearance. [10]
She competed in the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo at the age of 13, the youngest Brazilian ever to participate in the Olympic Games. [11] In the skateboarding street competition she placed 3rd in the qualifiers. [12] [13] [14] In the final, she won the silver medal. [15] [16] At 13 years and 203 days old on medal day, she was the youngest Olympic medalist in 85 years [17] [18] [19] and became an instant celebrity, gaining 5.8 million new followers on Instagram. [20] The young athlete also won The Visa Awards following her display of sportsmanship towards her opponents during the competition. The prize is a $50,000 donation to a charity of her choice. [21]
On August 28, 2021, Rayssa won the opening leg of the 2021 Street League Skateboarding season, which took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. In the last round of tricks, Rayssa needed an 8.3 rating to pass Funa Nakayama and managed to get an 8.5 rating. It was, at that time, the highest score in women's SLS history, as no woman had achieved a 360º flip followed by a handrail maneuver until this point in an official competition. [22]
In April 2022, she won her first X Games gold medal, defeating Funa Nakayama and Chloe Covell. [23]
In November 2022, she won the 2022 SLS Super Crown in Rio de Janeiro. [24]
In December 2023, she won again the 2023 SLS Super Crown in São Paulo. [25] In the final, she got a 9 rating for the first time in her career. This achievement also made her the first woman to get a 9 rating during the line section in an SLS competition. [26]
Nyjah Imani Huston is an American professional skateboarder. With numerous sponsorships and competition prize winnings, Huston is one of the highest paid skateboarders in the world. Huston won gold medals at the SLS Super Crown World Championship in 2014, 2017 to 2019, and has won 12 gold medals at the X Games since 2011.
Carla Marangoni, was an Italian gymnast who competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics. She was born in Pavia as Carla, but she is usually (mistakenly) mentioned in the official statistics as Clara. In 1928, she won the silver medal as member of the Italian gymnastics team and was therefore among the first Italian women to win an Olympic medal. She was also the last surviving athlete from 1928 Summer Games. Marangoni died on 18 January 2018 at the age of 102 years. She was the 6th and last youngest medalist from the Olympic Games until the silver medal in skateboarding from the Brazilian Rayssa Leal in 2021.
Iones "Ines" Vercesi was an Italian gymnast who competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics. In 1928, she won the silver medal as member of the Italian gymnastics team. She was the 4th youngest medalist at the Olympic Games.
Street League Skateboarding (SLS) is an international skateboarding tournament series. The league features professional street skateboarders competing for the largest monetary prize in the history of skateboarding, and was founded by professional skateboarder and entrepreneur Rob Dyrdek.
Letícia Bufoni e Silva is a Brazilian-American professional street skateboarder. She is a six-time X Games gold medalist.
Shane O'Neill is an Australian professional skateboarder from Melbourne, Victoria. Shane is a member of the SLS "9 Club" meaning he has landed a trick in the Street League competition that judges scored an average of 9 or better. Shane's trick was a switchstance Switch 360 double kickflip. In 2016 Shane won a silver medal at the X Games in Oslo. His normal stance is Goofy.
Brazil competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Originally scheduled to take place from 24 July to 9 August 2020, the Games were postponed to 23 July to 8 August 2021, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the nation's twenty-third appearance at the Summer Olympics, having competed in all editions of the modern era from 1920 onwards, except the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam.
Margielyn Arda Didal is a Filipino professional street skateboarder who rose to fame when she competed in the X Games Minneapolis 2018 and won a gold medal in the 2018 Asian Games.
Alexis Sablone is a goofy-footed American professional skateboarder, who ranked 12th in the world as of July 2021. She has competed in every X Games competition since 2009, the World Skateboarding Championship, and skated on the Dew Tour. Sablone competed in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, placing 4th in the women's street final. In addition to being a professional skateboarder, Sablone has a master's degree in architecture from MIT. She currently resides in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Funa Nakayama is a Japanese skateboarder from Toyama City. Nakayama won a bronze medal in the women's street competition at the 2020 Summer Olympics held in Tokyo, Japan. In January 2023, she became the first Asian woman to be featured on the cover of Thrasher.
Pâmela Leite Rosa is a regular-footed Professional Brazilian skateboarder from São José dos Campos.
Aori Nishimura is a regular-footed Japanese professional street skateboarder. Nishimura represented Japan in the women's street event at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Hayley Wilson is a goofy-footed Australian skateboarder from Mansfield, Victoria, Australia.
Yuto Horigome is a Japanese professional skateboarder. He won the gold medal in the inaugural Olympic men's street event at the 2020 Summer Olympics, becoming the first person ever to win a gold medal in skateboarding at the Olympics.
Sky Brown is a British-Japanese professional skateboarder and surfer who competes for Great Britain. She is the youngest professional skateboarder in the world, and has also won the American TV programme Dancing with the Stars: Juniors. She represented Great Britain at the 2020 Summer Olympics, where she won a bronze medal in the park event, making her the country's youngest ever medallist. She won the park event at the 2023 World Skateboarding Championship.
The 2020 Summer Olympics women's street skateboarding competition occurred on 26 July 2021 at Ariake Urban Sports Park in Tokyo, Japan.
Kelvin Hoefler is a Brazilian professional street skateboarder. He won the silver medal in the inaugural Olympic men's street skateboarding event at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Yndiara Asp is a Brazilian professional skateboarder, who represented Brazil in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
Brazil is scheduled to compete in the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile from October 20 to November 5, 2023.
