She heard her number 10 being called, shook hands with a teammate who was leaving the field and ran to Brazil’s position with a smile on her face.
She made a quick sign of the cross, rubbed her hands together, and raised them with open fingers to receive the ball. And then Raquel Kochhann nodded: Keep playing.
This also seems to be his life motto. A deep desire to pursue her dreams saw Kochhann overcome breast cancer, surgery and months of follow-up treatment to return to the highest level of sevens rugby and have a chance at her third Olympics.
After more than a year and a half away, initially with a knee injury and then recovering from cancer, Kochhann reappeared for Brazil in January at the world sevens event in Perth. She helped Brazil reach the quarter-finals in Los Angeles, held in Hong Kong and the series final in Madrid.
Now she is preparing for the Paris Gameswhere the women’s seven starts on July 28th.
The hardest person to convince that she would be ready in time for Paris was her doctor “due to the complexity of the case,” says Kochhann.
“He always supported me, but he was apprehensive and careful,” the 31-year-old Brazilian told the Associated Press. “To this day, his heart is in his mouth whenever I receive some kind of blow.”
Hard hits are a regular occurrence in the condensed, fast-paced version of rugby known as sevens (due to the number of players on each team).
Upper body collisions are frequent when players are carrying the ball or attacking, which can make doctors nervous.
Not Kochhann. She believes she has done the work in the gym and recovery to prepare her body for anything the sport can throw at her. She also received medical clearance from the team.
In a social media post in late 2023 announcing his return to play, Kochhann encouraged followers to “play every game as if it were your last.”
“This phrase seems cliché, but we don’t know what tomorrow will bring, what if we don’t have another opportunity?” she posted. “Our destiny is unpredictable. An ACL injury in May 2022 turned out to be a lengthy treatment for breast cancer. Lots of learning and personal growth.”
A dedicated football player as a young athlete with ambitions of wearing Brazil’s famous shirt, Kochhann tried rugby for the first time at the age of 19. She was instantly converted.
She debuted for Brazil in 2014, won the bronze medal at the Pan American Games the following year and was there in 2016 for the host team when rugby sevens made her Olympic debut in Rio de Janeiro.
Her mother was unable to attend the Olympics because she herself was dealing with breast cancer, but Kochhann reveled in the support of her sister and thousands of new fans. The Tokyo Olympics were a totally different experience as spectators were banned due to COVID-19 restrictions.
But she was determined and good enough to gain another Olympic experience, even when, while rehabbing a knee injury, she underwent tests for a lump in her breast and discovered it was malignant.
“Cancer wasn’t a shock given my family’s medical history and genetics — and it could have happened at any time in my life,” Kochhann said in a matter-of-fact interview with the world series of seven. “I had a preventive bilateral mastectomy and moved to the oncology department. I had to interrupt my career and undergo chemotherapy to prevent the cancer from spreading.”
Meanwhile, health experts told her to stay physically active.
“Even though therapy knocked me down physically,” she says, “I kept believing I could beat this…and I did.”
Whatever happens between now and the end of July, Kochhann wants his inspiring comeback to be a message “that everything in life always has a good side and a bad side.”
“Our recovery and how we live life will depend on which side we choose to look at. I could be sad, upset about the injury and then the cancer, but that would take a lot of energy, and I chose to focus that energy on recovery. Always seeing an opportunity in every difficulty.”
The easiest person to convince that she could return to rugby was Brazilian coach Will Broderick “who, like me, was looking forward to being able to coach me and see me back on the field,” says Kochhann.
Broderick, who has been coaching the Brazilian women’s sevens team since just before the Tokyo Olympics, felt he barely had the right to evaluate Kochhann’s return.
“Because it’s way above what you would imagine a human being would be able to do,” Broderick said in a phone interview with the AP. “We witnessed this first hand – she trained very hard during chemotherapy, through radiotherapy. She was at the training center every day.
“If she wasn’t training, she was at training, helping with filming and coaching. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”
Broderick always thought his star player would return, but acknowledged there are always doubts.
“There are so many things that could go wrong, but she’s probably one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met,” he says. “To be honest, it’s phenomenal. Incredible. Then she goes back to training and how can I tell her… she needs to try harder, work. Who am I to say that?”
But Kochhann was willing to push harder. The downside was that Kochhann became an inspirational presence for other players.
“She has matured all the time and no longer lets the little things bother her too much, like refereeing decisions or small mistakes,” says Broderick. “She has grown in that sense and in the way she deals with little setbacks, because I think her perspective is completely different.”
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This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
