There was a bow. There must always be a bow. Respect for your opponent, and respect for the sport. But no sooner was the bow over than Rafaela Silva was running towards the crowd, her arms aloft, the cheers shattering her eardrums.
After three days, the home nation’s wait for a gold medal is over. Brazil has its local hero. And Rio de Janeiro has its hero too, a 24-year-old woman who grew up just five miles away in one of the city’s most notorious slums, where many of her family still live. For a Games held in a country with rampant inequality, showering money on those least in need of it, this was a loudspeaker blast from the favelas: from the same streets and steps to which Silva will return as an Olympic champion.
On Silva’s right bicep, covered by her judo jacket, is a tattoo. It reads: “God alone knows what I suffered to get here.” And ever since she grew up in the City of God favela, made famous by the film of the same name, Silva has been a fighter.
She fought boys in her street. She even fought her parents. Craving some discipline and direction for their daughter, they took her to a local judo school called Instituto Reacao, founded by former Olympic bronze medallist Flavio Canto. It was a decision that would change her life.
As a sport, judo is the perfect blend of art and science, of discipline and expression, in which the human body becomes both a paintbrush and a complex system of weights and pulleys that needs to be manoeuvred with the utmost precision. It was introduced by the mass wave of Japanese immigrants to Brazil in the 1930s, and since its admission to the Olympic programme in 1964 has provided more medals to Brazil than any other sport.
Only football carries a greater weight of expectation at these Games. And with the London 2012 48kg champion Sarah Menezes handed a shock quarter-final defeat on Saturday, the hopes of the host nation rested on the women’s 57kg, and the powerful shoulders of Silva. She was the 2013 world champion, but not the favourite. And yet if she was feeling the pressure, she was doing a good job of hiding it.
Her first round match against Miryam Roper of Germany lasted just 46 seconds. In the last-16 she threw the world No2 from South Korea, Kim Jan Di, onto her side like an ill-fitting coat. Next, in the quarter-final, came Hedvig Karakas of Hungary. With the crowd singing her name and booing the Hungarian whenever she went to ground, Silva’s right leg swept in like a sudden rainstorm and flipped Karakas over for a waza-ari.
It was a victory that exorcised some bad memories. Four years ago in London, Silva was facing Karakas – an opponent she should have beaten easily – when she was harshly disqualified for an illegal hold. The response on social media from Brazil’s sizeable network of cyber-bullies, who co-ordinate attacks against prominent black women, was brutal. One called her “a monkey in a cage”.
Ever the fighter, Silva responded in kind, earning herself a rebuke from her national federation. But the events of 2012 left a scar. She sank into depression and stopped training for months. Now, just a few miles away from where she grew up, most of her family was in attendance to watch her shot at redemption. “In London, they called my daughter a monkey,” her mother Zenilda said. “Now, we are here. And because of what happened in London, today she’ll come out on top.”
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