During her gymnastics years, Lais was a power gymnast, on Floor, she used to do a double Arabian into punch front an extremely difficult and rarely seen pass. She was a finalist on Floor at the World Championships in 2006 and also won bronze on the apparatus at the World Cup Final held in Sao Paulo in 2006. A year later at home Pan-American Games in Rio de Janeiro, she won three bronzes: team, vault and bars.
Lais enjoyed a long and fruitful career with the Brazilian team, she attended several World Championships, two Pan-American Games and two Olympic Games. In fact, she came close to attending her third Games in London 2012 but a hand injury ultimately prevented her from competing.
Brazil and Latin America, in general, has no tradition in winter sports due to the climate not being cold enough to generate ice or snow. In an effort to give some force to the winter program Brazilian gymnasts were invited for try-outs on aerial skiing in May of 2013. Only four women showed up and only two were selected: Lais Souza and Josi Santos. Watch Lais briefly talking (in Portuguese) about taking up aerial skiing.
Despite the short training time, Lais was doing well, she had already competed in the sport and won a medal in December of 2013. A month later, in January of 2014, she was in her final preparation in the United States waiting to see if a spot for the Olympics in Sochi would open up. In the end, it would and Josi Santos would go in her place.
In aerial skiing actual skiing has little involvement, athletes only ski to get to the top of the hill that will propel them into the air where they will perform their acrobatic moves before landing back on the hill. Athletes perform their elements while several meters above the air and a miscalculated landing can certainly lead to life-changing injuries.
However this was not the case with Lais, on January 27th, 2014, she was ski training at Double Jack (Park City Mountain Resort in Utah) when she lost control at high speed and hit her head with a tree. The injury was so serious that her life was in danger in the days following the accident. She gradually recovered but not the feeling on her legs and arms, she had been left quadriplegic at the age of 25.
In gymnastics, Yelena Mukhina had suffered the same fate 34 years earlier while performing a “Thomas Salto” and while they had the same type of injury the outcome will be vastly different. Technology and medicine have evolved incredibly in over three decades and today through Instagram we can follow Lais’ everyday life in her journey to regain any mobility she can.
Through her smile, joy and determination to overcome the extreme challenge life has presented her we look up at her as a fighter, a role model to everyone involved in the gymnastics community
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