Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade returns to competition on Wednesday at the 2026 Pan American Gymnastics Championships in Rio de Janeiro, her first meet since the Paris 2024 Olympics. The six-time Olympic medalist and most decorated Olympian in Brazilian history will run a vault-only program in the same city where she made her Olympic debut a decade ago, with the next 14 months now mapped toward a fourth Games at Los Angeles 2028.
What Andrade Is Walking Back Into in Rio
The Pan American Championships open Wednesday at a Rio de Janeiro venue familiar to Andrade in more ways than one. The 27-year-old debuted at the Olympics inside the same city in 2016, finishing 11th in the all-around and walking away with a Brazilian team that has not stopped climbing since. The Rio floor is also the floor where she first laid down a senior vault on the international stage. Pan Am results now carry a 2026 consequence: they feed qualification for the World Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam this October.
Brazil is the defending women’s team champion after winning the 2024 Pan American title, and the host nation has built a depth chart that includes Andrade on the senior side for the first time since the Paris Games ended. The 17-21 June competition is the first major international event of her return after a year-long competitive break that started the day she left Bercy with floor gold, all-around and vault silver, and team bronze around her neck. In her detailed interview ahead of the Rio return, she framed the moment as a slow re-entry, with no all-around in the program.
Andrade does not sound like an athlete in a hurry. “I don’t put pressure on myself. Today I have more clarity and I’m more conscious about that,” she said. The clarity has a price she is willing to pay: she will not run a full all-around this week.
The Field She Faces in Rio
The defending champions will not be unopposed. The United States, the team Brazil beat in Paris for the Olympic team bronze, arrives in Rio with a Paris team gold medalist on the senior side for the first time on this circuit. The five-woman squad was confirmed on May 16 by USA Gymnastics, per the U.S. selection announcement.
The Pan American Championships double as a qualifier for the 2026 World Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam, 17-25 October, and three women’s teams are likely to be fighting for the two direct Americas spots. Brazil’s women are the defending continental champions, with Andrade back on the entry list for the first time since the Paris Games. The U.S. has built a five-woman squad around a Paris team gold medalist, while Canada has stacked its lineup with an Olympian and a current World vault medallist, per the full Pan American Championships preview. All three federations are pointed at the same destination: a fully staffed team in Rotterdam in October.
| Country | 2026 Pan Ams women’s squad | Headline credentials |
|---|---|---|
| Brazil | Rebeca Andrade (vault only) and a host-nation roster | Defending Pan Am team champions; Andrade a six-time Olympic medalist and 2022 World all-around champion |
| USA | Hezly Rivera, Charleigh Bullock, Claire Pease, Simone Rose, Lila Richardson | 2024 Olympic team gold; Rivera, Bullock, and Pease won 2026 American Cup team silver |
| Canada | Aurélie Tran, Lia-Monica Fontaine | Fontaine is the 2025 World vault medallist; Tran is a two-time Olympian |
Why Vault, and Why Only Vault
Vault is the event where Andrade has always been safest. She is the 2020 Olympic vault champion, a two-time World vault champion (2021, 2023), and the 2023 Pan American Games vault champion, and her work on the apparatus survived three ACL tears that ended her 2015, 2017, and 2019 seasons before they began.
The Tokyo 2020 vault gold made her the first Brazilian woman to win an Olympic gymnastics medal of any color and, days later, the first Brazilian Olympic gymnastics gold medalist in history. Her Paris 2024 floor gold added a second Olympic title, a result she now says is likely her last on that apparatus. Floor will be saved, in her framing, for a moment when Brazil needs her to put it back on the line.
Three ACL tears (in 2015, 2017, and 2019) and surgery on each foot have left Andrade unwilling to load a full all-around program on a comeback that is meant to last two more years. The Pan American Championships are a controlled re-entry, with less impact on a body that has carried Brazil for a decade. By saving the all-around, the uneven bars, the balance beam, and the floor for a more controlled return at the World Championships in October, she keeps the door open for a fourth Olympic team in Los Angeles. Her coach, Francesco "Chico" Porath, has laid out a season plan built around the long game.
That decision has a logic that goes beyond risk management. A four-event program would have meant four chances to re-aggravate the right knee. A vault-only Pan Ams keeps the program to one event and the maximum number of clean vaults she can put on tape before Rotterdam. The trade-off is visible: Andrade’s medal ceiling in Rio is lower than it was in Paris, but her runway to Los Angeles is longer. The Pan Ams are the first of several planned events on the runway.
Andrade’s Decade, in Five Dates
Andrade’s career is a decade-long line from Rio 2016, where she finished 11th in the all-around at 17, to Rio 2026, where she will be 27. Between those two Rio summers she has piled up six Olympic and nine World medals, more than any other Brazilian gymnast and more than any other Latin American. The five dates below are the ones that built the case for her as the most decorated gymnast in Brazilian Olympic history. The arc also explains why the Pan American Championships, on the same surface where the whole run started, are being read as a fresh start.
- 2016 Rio: Olympic debut at 17, all-around 11th
- 2020 Tokyo: vault gold, first Brazilian gymnastics gold; all-around silver behind Suni Lee
- 2022 Liverpool: 2022 World all-around gold, first Latin American woman to win the title
- 2023 Antwerp: World team silver (Brazil’s first), World vault gold, World all-around silver
- 2024 Paris: floor gold, all-around and vault silver (both behind Simone Biles), team bronze (Brazil’s first Olympic team medal)
Of those, the 2022 title was the line that pushed her past history: she became the first Latin American woman to win the World all-around, joining a list that until then had been closed to gymnasts from outside North America, Europe, and Asia. The 2023 team silver and the 2024 Olympic bronze are the dates that turned a one-woman story into a team sport.
The Coach and the Plan Behind the Year Off
The 2025 calendar held no major Andrade routines, and that was the design. After Paris, she rested, picked up her 2025 Comeback of the Year recognition, attended the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics as one of 10 athletes who carried the Olympic flag into the stadium, and watched from the stands as Brazilian Lucas Pinheiro Braathen won the men’s alpine skiing giant slalom to become the first South American Winter Games medalist. Then she went back to work with her longtime coach, Francesco "Chico" Porath.
Porath has built the return around a small number of high-quality routines. The pair have laid out a plan for the rest of 2026 that they say allows her to maximize potential without maxing out physically, with the World Championships in Rotterdam in October as the next confirmed major. The decision to skip 2025 was a bet that an extra year of body and mind at 27 would buy more clean competition in 2026 and 2027 than another season of grinding would have. The longer runway runs through Los Angeles, where she would be 29 in the summer of 2028.
We set out as a family to achieve our goals.
That was Rebeca Andrade, the six-time Olympic medalist, in an interview with World Gymnastics ahead of the Pan American Championships. The team’s success, she said, has inspired thousands of children across Brazil to take up gymnastics, and the depth chart that wins medals in Los Angeles starts with the depth the federation has now.
The 14-Month Runway to LA 2028
Every score Andrade posts between now and the closing ceremony in Los Angeles on July 30, 2028 is a data point in the case for or against a fourth Olympic medal at 29. The Pan American Championships, the 2026 World Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam in October, and a 2027 season that will include the next World Championships are the milestones. The Los Angeles Games are the destination.
Brazil’s team picture matters as much as her individual one. The squad that won 2024 Olympic bronze in Paris had athletes who have since retired, moved on, or are returning from injury, and the next generation of Brazilian women, including those on the floor with Andrade in Rio this week, will form the pool from which the Los Angeles team is selected.
The numbers favor her. She is the 2022 World all-around champion, a two-time World vault champion, and a six-time Olympic medalist. No other Brazilian gymnast has come within shouting distance of those totals. The body will have to last another two seasons of training and competition after a year of rest, and the depth chart that wins medals in LA will have to be built between now and the spring of 2028.
Andrade has signaled she will be selective about which events she adds back. Floor, where her Paris 2024 gold is now her signature moment, may be the last apparatus she ever competes in a major. Bars, beam, and the all-around are all open. The 14-month runway is shaped one meet at a time, and the first stop is on Wednesday in Rio.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does Rebeca Andrade return to competition?
Wednesday, at the 2026 Pan American Gymnastics Championships in Rio de Janeiro. The meet runs 17-21 June and is her first international competition since the Paris 2024 floor final.
Why is Andrade doing only vault?
She has had three ACL tears (in 2015, 2017, and 2019) and surgery on each foot. A vault-only program is the lowest-impact route back, and her Paris 2024 floor gold is, in her own words, likely her last on that apparatus.
Who leads the U.S. team at the 2026 Pan Ams?
Hezly Rivera, the 2024 Olympic team gold medalist, leads a five-woman U.S. squad of Charleigh Bullock, Claire Pease, Simone Rose, and Lila Richardson. Rivera won a 2026 American Cup team silver in March.
What comes after the Pan Ams for Andrade?
The 2026 World Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam, 17-25 October. Pan Ams results feed Americas qualification to that meet, and Andrade and Porath have framed 2026 as a measured build toward Los Angeles 2028.
What is Andrade’s Olympic medal record?
Two Olympic golds (vault in Tokyo 2020, floor in Paris 2024), three silvers (all-around in Tokyo 2020, all-around and vault in Paris 2024), and one team bronze (Paris 2024). She is the most decorated Brazilian Olympian in any sport.
Andrade will be back on the apparatus on Wednesday in Rio, in the same city that watched her Olympic debut ten years ago. The vault gold she is chasing this week is the first stop on a runway she has set, in her own words, for what she still wants to do.
