--- title: Rayssa Leal: TIME100 Most Influential People in Sports 2026 description: Find out why Rayssa Leal was selected for TIME‘s 2026 list of the most influential people in sports. canonical: https://time.com/collection/time100-sports/2026/rayssa-leal/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-06-09T12:00:56.271Z article:modified_time: 2026-06-09T12:00:56.379Z article:section: Sports og:title: TIME100 Most Influential People in Sports 2026: Rayssa Leal og:description: Find out why Rayssa Leal is on the list og:url: https://time.com/collection/time100-sports/2026/rayssa-leal/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt576bac2b7db7b0ff/6a208ad53e142e292e0f681a/T100SPORTS-2026-Web-Rayssa-Leal.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y0.00 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME100 Most Influential People in Sports 2026: Rayssa Leal og:type: article twitter:card: summary twitter:title: TIME100 Most Influential People in Sports 2026: Rayssa Leal twitter:description: Find out why Rayssa Leal is on the list twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt576bac2b7db7b0ff/6a208ad53e142e292e0f681a/T100SPORTS-2026-Web-Rayssa-Leal.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y0.00 --- Jun 09, 2026 # Rayssa Leal by Scott Allen  Anderson Lira—SPP/Sipa USA/Reuters “I don’t know anything about this but I love it,” skateboarding legend Tony Hawk wrote on Instagram when he shared [a video of a 7-year-old girl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz1SRVkrsy0&t=21s "undefined") in a fairy costume executing a heelflip over a set of stairs in 2015\. Ten years later, Rayssa Leal, the Brazilian star of that viral video, was featured as a playable character in Hawk’s eponymous skateboarding video game. Leal [won silver](https://time.com/6083877/olympics-womens-skateboarding-stars/ "undefined") at the first Olympic women’s street skateboarding event in Tokyo as a 13-year-old in 2021, inspiring a new generation of athletes in soccer-mad Brazil to trade kicks for kickflips. The goofy-footed prodigy—riding unconventionally with her right foot forward—eclipsed soccer superstar [Neymar](https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4736277/neymar/ "undefined") as the youngest Brazilian to win multiple Olympic medals when she captured bronze at the 2024 Paris Games. Leal, who turned 18 this year, won her fourth consecutive Street League Skateboarding Super Crown World Championship in December. She has her sights set on a five-peat after winning SLS’s season-opening event in Sydney in February. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-sports/2026/rayssa-leal/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-sports/2026/rayssa-leal/"},"headline":"Rayssa Leal","datePublished":"2026-06-09T12:00:56.271Z","dateModified":"2026-06-09T12:00:56.379Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collection/time100-sports/2026/rayssa-leal/","keywords":["list","franchise"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt576bac2b7db7b0ff/6a208ad53e142e292e0f681a/T100SPORTS-2026-Web-Rayssa-Leal.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y0.00&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Scott Allen"}],"creator":"Scott Allen","articleSection":"Sports","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt576bac2b7db7b0ff/6a208ad53e142e292e0f681a/T100SPORTS-2026-Web-Rayssa-Leal.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y0.00&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/sports/","name":"Sports"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-sports/2026/rayssa-leal/","name":"Rayssa Leal"}}]}] ```