In an Olympics where spectators were barred from most events, families of the athletes have been watching from home. We speak to the people cheering on their relatives at a distance.
Rebeca Andrade, gold and silver medal-winning gymnast from Brazil
Emerson Andrade, the brother of the Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade, is still struggling to find the words to describe his sister’s Olympics triumph, which has made her an overnight national hero in their homeland.
“It’s indescribable. There’s no way of measuring what you feel,” said the 30-year-old sales consultant, who played a key role in his sister’s rise to sports stardom: ferrying her to gym class when he was 13 and she was just four, while their mother was out toiling as a domestic worker to support the family.
“We saw [back then] that she had real ability – but nothing was guaranteed at all. So it was so gratifying to see everything worked out in the end,” Rebeca’s brother said as the athlete returned from Japan where she won silver in the individual all-around category before picking up gold in the women’s vault final on Sunday.
Emerson remembers waking up at the crack of dawn to watch Sunday’s final at his home in Guarulhos, an industrial city on the outskirts of São Paulo where Rebeca, one of eight siblings, was born into poverty.
“By 5.30am we all had our eyes glued to the screen. It was super-early,” said Emerson, the second oldest of the clan.
Minutes later his 22-year-old sister – who overcame a series of serious injuries in the years leading up to the competition – was airborne. When she successfully completed her second vault, Emerson noticed a wide grin on Rebeca’s face, suggesting she thought she had clinched a place on the podium. “Her expression told me a medal was coming. We just couldn’t tell whether it would be gold or silver. Both vaults were virtually impeccable,” he said.
When Rebeca’s victory was confirmed, ecstatic relatives battled to contain their joy. “We didn’t want to scream too loudly because of the time of day … We were over the moon but we had to control ourselves because of the neighbours,” Emerson said.
Brazil has also gone wild over the success of the charismatic young black gymnast – holding Rebeca and her family up as examples of hard work, resilience and elegance at a time when the country is grappling with Covid, which has killed more than 500,000 people. “On top of her talent … and being an absolute princess of global gymnastics, she has this look of peace and serenity and tranquillity and purity, which is everything we need right now,” Brazil’s most famous sports commentator, Galvão Bueno, told Rebeca’s mother after Sunday’s victory.
Emerson said he felt proud to see Rebeca’s name “reverberating positively around Brazil” – “we’ve already got plenty of people setting bad examples” – but played down the idea there was anything extraordinary about the Andrades.
“We’re just a typical Brazilian family,” he said. “There’s no big secret.”
Ruby Tui, gold medal-winning New Zealand rugby player
Dani Fennessy, the partner of New Zealand’s Black Ferns Sevens star Ruby Tui, spent the day of the Tokyo Olympics women’s rugby sevens finals trying not to vomit with nerves.
Fennessy, 29, watched the New Zealand v France match from a crowded venue on Auckland’s waterfront, 5,500 miles (9,000km) away from the empty Tokyo stadium.
“I’ve never been that nervous in my whole life. I thought I was going to pass out,” Fennessy said.
“I see how much work they put into those games, the onfield stuff is only a snippet of what people see. Their training, their sacrifices and everything they have been through since winning silver at the Rio Olympics, I knew how much that [gold] meant to every single one of them.”
But Fennessy had an inkling the Black Ferns would take the gold against France when she saw the sheer focus and determination on the women’s faces as they entered the field.
“They looked like they were ready to do whatever it took to win that gold medal. I thought: ‘They are hungry and they are going to get that gold.’”
The Black Ferns stormed to victory 26-12, winning their first Olympic gold, and as the venue erupted into claps and cheers, Fennessy, overwhelmed, huddled into “a hermit crab” and sobbed.
Fennessy’s plans to travel to the Olympics were disrupted by Covid-19, but she said in that moment the distance between the team and their loved ones vanished.
“There was enough love and support in the room that we all felt right there in that moment with them. It didn’t matter that we were miles away, we felt we were on that sideline cheering them when they got that gold.”
An hour after the match ended, Tui video called Fennessy, and despite barely being able to hear one another in the cacophony of celebrations, her face spoke “a million words”.
“She just looked at me and held her gold medal up, and I think she said ‘We did it.’ That picture was priceless.”
Tui, 29, has become a fan favourite during the Olympics, after charming audiences with her joyful and candid interviews.
“That’s the beautiful thing about Ruby, she’s just her, she doesn’t need to try and be anyone else. Her aura is so contagious and she has got so much love and support. Her heart is her best quality and that shone through. People were captivated by that.”
The Black Ferns are now back in New Zealand, where they will complete two weeks in managed isolation.
Speaking from her hotel room in Christchurch, Tui said she was longing to see her family and friends.
“This whole journey is not complete until we get to hug all our family, all our friends, and put the gold medal around their neck as well. That’s number one on all of our lists.”
Tui said the players’ families have to shoulder a lot and the demands of the game and lifestyle are endless.
“We are so, so grateful for them and there aren’t enough words, or gifts we could buy, to truly tell them how grateful we are.”
The couple will have been apart for eight weeks by the time Tui is released, and Fennessy said they will celebrate with coffee dates on the beach and “a lot of sleep-ins”.
Lo Chia-ling, taekwondo bronze medallist from Taiwan
Lo Chia-ling’s family didn’t find out they weren’t going with her to Tokyo until two weeks before the Games. It was not unexpected but still hit hard. The 19-year-old is the youngest member of Taiwan’s Olympic team and was competing in her first ever Games.
“I booked tickets but I was told … that I couldn’t go because of protocols for Covid-19,” her father, Lo Wen-hsiang, tells the Guardian.
“We felt a little sad we couldn’t be there in person to cheer her on … She learned of the new protocols from the news, so was mentally prepared, but was sad when I told her.”
Instead they had to leave her in the hands of her taekwondo trainers, while the family watched together in their home village – themselves subject to pandemic restrictions which limited their party to 10.
“The games were so close that my muscles remained stiffened for the entire game,” says Lo’s mother, Ho Chien-chin. “I felt so exhausted and needed some time to restore my energy every time I watched.”
Lo grew up in rural northern Taiwan, in the kind of small coastal village where everyone knows each other. Wen-hsiang runs a local taekwondo gym and it was here that Lo learned to love the sport, as one of the youngest pupils. Wen-hsiang says he had to play dual roles – the tough trainer in the gym and the comforting father in private. At 16 Lo was accepted into the national sports training centre in Kaohsiung at the other end of the island, again as one of the youngest trainees but this time far from home and family.
“There are so many things and memories during the time she was here, before leaving for a bigger stage. My words fail me to wrap up the entire process within a few sentences.”
Had Taiwan’s pandemic rules allowed it, Lo’s elementary school would have set up an outdoor screen and a local cafe owner would have held live streaming events, such was the community support for their local girl, Wen-hsiang says.
Instead, news, updates and messages from Lo spread around the village like wildfire, through SMS and online community groups, as she progressed through the competition.
Lo fought her way to a bronze medal by defeating South Korean Lee Ah-reum 20-18 in the round of 16, then Canadian Skylar Park in the quarter-final 18-7, and Niger’s Tekiath Ben Yessouf 10-6. In her final matchup, Lo took the bronze after she was beaten by eventual gold medallist Anastasija Zolotic of the US.
“We watched the games so anxiously in the entire series and couldn’t help but scream at the moment when she clinched the bronze medal,” says Wen-hsiang.
“Everyone in the room jumped and screamed. We were so delighted that we forgot to film that very moment.”