On Monday afternoon, a hometown favorite won Brazil’s first gold medal of the 2016 Olympics. Rafaela Silva, who hails from the notorious “City of God” favela on the outskirts of Rio, beat top-seeded Dorjsürengiin Sumiya of Mongolia in the 57-kilogram judo final, sending the home crowd into ecstasy. Silva cried as she ran off the mat to embrace her coaches, then climbed into the stands where she was enveloped by family, friends, and fans.
In the 2012 London Olympics, Silva was disqualified for an illegal hold. According to a New York Times profile on Silva, the loss in London still stings. “The opponent was a girl from Hungary who I had beaten easily before,” she said. “I don’t know if I thought that I should just do this quickly, but the judge gave me one point, then changed it and disqualified me.”
After the loss, she was bombarded by racist messages. “I was very sad because I had lost the fight,” Silva told the CBC. “So I walked to my room, I found all those insults on social media, they were criticizing me, calling me monkey, so I got really, really upset. I thought about leaving judo.”
The Times wrote:
Some Brazilians on social media mocked her and called her racial epithets, one saying that “the place of a monkey is in a cage.” Silva could not resist responding, and did so with vitriolic name-calling of her own. The Twitter war attracted so much attention that the Brazil Olympic Committee stepped in to admonish the attacks, and judo officials persuaded Silva to stop replying to bigoted critics.
Now, armed with a gold medal, Silva has the ultimate last word.
