JadeBarbosa
in Stuttgart, she at least reached those finals. There
should be other chances in the future. “I’m really a
perfectionist,” she says of her personality. “I’m the
type of person who gets really mad when I make
mistakes.”
Outside the sport, she’s a typical teen who loves
to shop at the mall and hang out with friends. To
really unwind, she likes to treat herself to a manicure and pedicure.
Barbosa’s favorite singer is hip-hop artist Akon,
and she’s read all the “Harry Potter” books. And
what kind of food does one of the world’s top gymnasts crave? (Warning to all aspiring gymnasts: Skip
the next sentence!) “I love McDonald’s and all kinds
of junk food,” she admits.
Perhaps Barbosa’s menu preferences are the
result of living away from home — and from being
the child of a single parent. Several years ago, her
mother passed away suddenly from an aneurysm.
As a result, Barbosa is extremely close to her father,
Cesar, who is an architect, and younger brother,
Pedro, who plays soccer and does gymnastics.
They live in Copacabana, a suburb of Rio, while
Barbosa resides in Curitiba with the national team.
“I call my father every day,” Barbosa says.
Barbosa lives in a house across the street from
the national training center, and one of her three
roommates is fellow senior team member Lais
Souza. Biology is her favorite subject in school, but
design is another area of interest. She might have
inherited that from her father, who actually
designed the Brazilian team leotards for Stuttgart.
Barbosa’s genes also make her one of the most
“I didn’t believe in myself so
much [before Stuttgart].
And once you win a medal,
you start believing that
your training is working.”
Barbosa’s dream week continued in the all-around final. Grouped with the top six qualifiers
from prelims, the powerful Brazilian vaulted into
the lead on the first event with a 15.90 for her 21⁄2-
twisting Yurchenko. Such a vault, which carries a
6. 5 difficulty rating, proved a huge advantage, since
a double-twisting Yurchenko, which was performed
by most of Barbosa’s main competitors, is worth
5. 8.
American Nastia Liukin tied for the lead with
Barbosa after uneven bars, the Brazilian’s weakest
event in terms of execution. Balance beam was a
different story, however. Mounting with a risky
roundoff-layout step-out onto the end, and dismounting with a roundoff, flip-flop, double pike,
Barbosa posted the second-highest beam mark of
the day ( 15.70). Heading to the last event, floor,
she was still in first place — alone. “I couldn’t imagine that this could happen,” she says now. “I didn’t
see the results until I finished floor.”
By then, however, her golden opportunity had
come and gone. She fell on her third pass, a piked
full-in. “I got upset,” recalls Barbosa, who says she
thought any color medal would be impossible after
such a big mistake. “Floor is a good event for me,
and it was the last event. I was upset, but then I felt
happy about doing well on the other three events.”
Barbosa’s joy, and that of the entire Brazilian
contingent, went off the charts when the final
results showed her in a tie for third with defending
champion Vanessa Ferrari. The bronze, Brazil’s
first all-around medal in a world championships,
reduced Barbosa to a flood of tears afterward.
Such is the disposition of Barbosa, who began
the sport at Rio’s renowned Clube Regatas do
Flamengo, where she was coached by Viviane
Cardoso, Ricardo Pereira and Georgette Vidor.
“She’s been emotional since she was a little kid,”
says former club mate Coral Borda. “I don’t think
she went through a whole training session without
crying. But she’s also a very friendly and caring person with other people.”
Barbosa names current teammates Daniele
Hypolito and Daiane dos Santos as role models,
along with 1976 Olympic champion Nadia
Comaneci of Romania. Hypolito won Brazil’s first
world medal in 2001, a silver on floor, and dos
Santos became her country’s first world champion
when she won floor in ’03.
Though Barbosa failed to medal on vault or beam
athletic gymnasts around. In the 2007 world all-around final, her 25.60 A-score total led the field
with room to spare. With more experience, she will
be hard to keep off the medal podium. In fact, she’s
already feeling more confident. “I didn’t believe in
myself so much [before Stuttgart],” she says. “And
once you win a medal, you start believing that your
training is working and you’re improving.”
Barbosa says her life didn’t really change in Brazil
after her all-around achievement, although her
celebrity grew. “People start to recognize me more
when I go out,” she says. “It doesn’t bother me —
I kind of enjoy it.”
She also hasn’t eased up in the gym, where she
says workouts are even harder than before. Beijing
2008 is less than a year away, and Barbosa represents just one of her team’s hopefuls to win Brazil’s
first Olympic medal.
Truth is, next summer might be the Brazilian
women’s last chance for a while to medal at an
Olympics. (Two-time floor world champion Diego
Hypolito is a medal favorite for the men.) Oleg
Ostapenko, who with fellow Ukrainian Irina
Ilyashenko helped build the current Brazilian program, will retire after Beijing, and the gymnasts
