Paris, July 28, 2024. Women's street final, last trick, and Rayssa Leal is more than 80 points out of third. She is 16. She goes to the rail and tries a kickflip front board, a trick she had never landed in competition. She lands it. The score comes up 253.37, and it is bronze, behind Japan's Coco Yoshizawa and Liz Akama.
Somewhere in the final she signed John 14:6 to the camera. With that bronze she became Brazil's youngest two-time Olympic medalist. But if you are Brazilian, you knew her face long before Paris. You knew it from when she was 7 and wearing wings.
The fairytale heelflip
September 7, 2015, Brazil's Independence Day, in Imperatriz, up in the northern state of Maranhão. A 7-year-old girl in a blue fairy dress, wings and all, saw people skating and wanted in. She rolled up to a three-stair and heelflipped it. Her mom filmed it.
The next day, Tony Hawk shared the clip on Twitter. He wrote that he didn't know anything about it but it was awesome, and he called it a fairytale heelflip in Brazil.
Her full name is Jhulia Rayssa Mendes Leal. After that clip, the whole country started calling her Fadinha, the little fairy. Six years later she was on an Olympic podium. She was 13.
Nothing else to give
Imperatriz is the second-largest city in Maranhão, and it is a long way from the skate scenes in Rio and São Paulo. Her father, Haroldo, and her mother, Lilian, did not have much. In Thrasher's documentary Out There, her dad explained the gift that started everything: they did not have anything else to give her, so they gave her a skateboard.
They took her to the park at Praça Mané Garrincha. Not everybody there was happy to see her. At the Tokyo Olympics she told reporters that when she started, she faced a lot of prejudice for being a girl and being so young. Her parents went door to door in the city asking for better public spaces and safety. The park was renovated in 2019.
Once she started winning, both her parents stopped working to run her career. Haroldo did the paperwork. Lilian did the travel, the interviews and the filming. In 2021 Haroldo told InfoMoney the family went through a lot of hardship, because neither of them had a job. She remembers the shoes.
"I would walk with shoes that had a hole in the sole that sometimes would even make a hole in my socks, it was what I had."
Rayssa Leal, in an Instagram post quoted by NPR, August 2024
Thirteen in Tokyo
In July 2019, at 11, she won the Street League Skateboarding stop in Los Angeles. Two years later she was on Brazil's team for the first Olympic skateboarding contest ever. While she waited for her final run in Tokyo, she danced. On July 26, 2021, she took silver in women's street, behind Japan's Momiji Nishiya, who was also 13. Rayssa was 13 years and 203 days old, the youngest Olympic medalist Brazil has ever had.
Tony Hawk was there. He showed up at her training sessions and filmed her. She calls him Tio Toninho, Little Uncle Tony. Back home, sales of the sneakers she wore jumped 80 percent at the retailer Netshoes on the first full day after her medal, compared with the same day a week earlier. And the 13-year-old with the medal said she wanted to go back to being the little girl she was, without responsibility.
The make
She did not get to stay little. She won the SLS Super Crown in Rio in 2022, then again in São Paulo in 2023, where she became the first woman to score a 9 on a run in SLS. She won world titles in 2022 and 2024. Nike put out a shoe with her name on it, the Rayssa Nike SB Dunk Low Pro. It sold out in 20 minutes.
That is who rolled into Paris: the shoe, the titles, the 80-point hole, and one trick she had never made in a contest. At the news conference afterward, she talked about history.
"I think we make history every day in our daily lives."
Rayssa Leal, through a translator, at her Paris Olympics news conference, July 28, 2024
Last year with a helmet
2025 had rough days. At the SLS stop in Paris in October she slammed on three of her five tries and went out in qualifying. She missed the podium at worlds.
In November she won the street title at STU Rio and joked to the crowd that this was her last year with a helmet, which skaters have to wear until they turn 18. To Agência O Globo she admitted she was anxious, even scared, about the new phase. Then on December 7, 2025, at the Ibirapuera gymnasium in São Paulo, she led from her first run and won her fourth straight Super Crown, at 17. Nobody else has won it four times.
Eighteen
She turned 18 on January 4, 2026. In February she opened the SLS season with a win in Sydney, 30.1 points. In August, SLS went to Rio's Maracanãzinho for the first time. The day before the contest she slammed in practice and hurt her right foot, and she said she was scared going in. She bailed her first run of the final. Then she beat Nishiya, the same girl from the Tokyo podium, by two tenths of a point, 20.9 to 20.7. She dedicated the trophy to her dad, who was there watching.
"Yesterday, I wasn't skating very well. Today, I gave it everything I had."
Rayssa Leal, after winning SLS Rio, to Agência Brasil, August 9, 2026
October was harder. On October 2 she hurt her ankle in practice in Paris and watched the SLS stop at Roland Garros from the stands. She told fans it was nothing serious. On October 18, at the World Skate Games in Asunción, Paraguay, she was going for a third world title. Her first run scored 77.11, third-best of the round. Then she missed all three of her trick attempts and finished seventh. Japan's Yumeka Oda won.
She is a global ambassador for the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games, the first Youth Olympics in Africa. SLS goes to Tokyo on November 14. The Super Crown is December 12 and 13 in São Paulo, and she is going for a fifth straight.
Eleven years after the fairy dress, Fadinha is 18 and skating without the helmet. The kid who heelflipped a three-stair in wings rolls into São Paulo as the only skater with four Super Crowns.
GAMECHANGER™Reporting draws on the Associated Press, NPR, Agência Brasil, Brasil de Fato, InfoMoney, Agência O Globo, Correio, A Crítica, Diário de Pernambuco, Rolling Stone Brasil, Forbes Brasil, Monster Energy, Catholic News Agency, Surfertoday, Remezcla, Imirante and Wikipedia's documented record of her career.
Sources (19)
Associated Press via MyNorthwest: Brazil Olympic skateboarding is a tropical fairytale for girls · NPR via MTPR: From holey shoes to holy shoe deal · Surfertoday: The fairytale story of Rayssa Leal · Remezcla: Rayssa Leal wins silver in Tokyo · Brasil de Fato: Rayssa Leal conquers the world with joy · InfoMoney: Rayssa Leal, the youngest of Brazil's Tokyo athletes · Associated Press via ADN: The tiniest skateboarder from Tokyo grows tall in Paris · Catholic World Report (CNA): Skateboarder uses sign language to quote Scripture · Diário de Pernambuco: Rayssa Leal out of SLS Paris finals · Agência O Globo via Tribuna do Sertão: Last year with a helmet · Forbes Brasil: Rayssa Leal wins fourth Super Crown · Monster Energy: Rayssa Leal wins SLS Sydney 2026 · Agência Brasil: Rayssa Leal wins Rio leg of SLS · Rolling Stone Brasil: Rayssa Leal in Rio · A Crítica: Rayssa Leal out of SLS Paris after injury · Correio: Rayssa Leal explains ankle injury · A Crítica: Rayssa Leal seventh at the world championship in Asunción · Correio: Rayssa Leal misses three tricks, finishes seventh · Imirante: Rayssa Leal named Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic ambassador