If you look at the Instagram feed of Olympic skateboarding medalist Rayssa Leal, you might be surprised to see a pair of old shoes with holes in them. They're a part of her story — and a symbol of how skateboarding has transformed her life. Rayssa Leal became an internet sensation almost 9 years ago when a video of the then 7-year-old skateboarding in a bright blue, sparkly princess dress with fairy wings went viral.
It earned her the nickname “fadinha do skate” — “little skateboarding fairy.” Soon she was being called “fadinha” — “little fairy” — in Portuguese. The viral clip even reached the great American skateboarder Tony Hawk, who shared it with his Instagram followers with the caption “I don't know anything about this but I love it: a fairytale heelflip in Brazil by #RayssaLeal.
” Here, Leal wears her iconic outfit in a photograph captured by Brazilian photographer, Suzy Negreiros. New shoes were a dream Life wasn’t always a fairytale for the young skateboarder. She got her first skateboard when she was 5 — a gift from her parents in 2013 .
She fell in love with skateboarding and dedicated her free time to practicing. But as she wrote in an Instagram post this March: “When I was little I always imagined having good sneakers for skateboarding that were comfortable, but unfortunately my parents couldn’t afford to buy me the best sneakers. I would walk with shoes that had a hole in the sole that sometimes would even make a hole in my sock.