Silver Medalist at the Tokyo Games, Rayssa Leal is in the running to secure her place in the Paris Olympics. At 16 years old, the young skater spoke briefly about what has changed since 2021.
“A lot of things have actually changed, both in my personal life and in my life as an athlete. My body has changed a lot, I’ve grown a lot,” she said.
One of Brazil’s hopes, the young woman dreams big and is looking for a gold medal, which would make her the youngest in the country’s history to achieve the feat.
“I want to bring gold to Brazil, I want to make all Brazilians very proud. Having that feeling of standing on the podium in first place, having the Brazilian anthem playing is a totally different thing,” she said.
“I want to evolve more, to be able to land more successful maneuvers that work on skateboarding, more spinning maneuvers, which is the most difficult. So, that’s it, go without fear”, he added.
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In the search for a place in Paris, Rayssa Leal qualified for the Olympic Classification Series, with the 11 best women’s street going to Paris, respecting the following criteria: at least one place in the host country (maximum four), one for the principle of Universality and a maximum of three skaters per country.
For women’s street, in addition to Rayssa Leal, Pâmela Rosa, Gabi Mazeto, Kemilly Suiara, Isabelly Ávila and Marina Gabriela are in the running for Brazil. Of the Brazilians, the silver medalist in Tokyo is the best placed at the moment, with 197,456 points, in second place overall.
The skateboarding places system takes into account results from previous competitions and the Shanghai and Budapest Olympic Qualification Series, with the sum of points determining who will go to Paris. The stage in China will take place between May 16th and 19th and in Hungary from June 20th to 23rd.
Since winning the silver medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games, Rayssa Leal has been consolidating her name in the history of world skateboarding. Among her main achievements are winning the World Skate World Cup, in February 2022, the Super Crown, the SLS World Cup, the main street skate league, in December 2022, and gold at the Pan American Games in Santiago 2022 .
