Carolina Rodriguez has never been lost for words. For the past 23 years she has been telling stories with her body through rhythmic gymnastics.
From there she has taught her parents, who are both deaf, to feel the music that they cannot hear, beginning an incredible journey which has lead them all to the Olympic finals.
When she had finished her routine with clubs in Rio, the giggly Spaniard started to make quick gestures with her hands towards her parents.
The camera focused in on her while awaiting the score of her penultimate routine. She was telling her parents that she loved them in sign language.
At 30 years old, Rodriguez has already broken an Olympic record in the sport as the oldest ever competitor.
Despite being a veteran, on Saturday she competed for the first time in an Olympic individual all-around final.
She finished eighth in the 10-woman final with Russian Margarita Mamun, 20, continuing Russia’s streak going back to Sydney 2000 ahead of three-time world champion team-mate Yana Kudryavtseva, 23.
It was the culmination of a dream come true for the gymnast from Leon in northeastern Spain who started training aged seven years in an abandoned church.
When Rodriguez speaks with her hands, everyone hears her.
“I think my expression is a gift that comes from my parents because when I was small I had to find ways to communicate with them,” she explains.
“When I hadn’t yet mastered sign language I had to be able to show if I had a stomach ache and had to be very expressive, so eventually it became instinctive.”
She quickly rose through the ranks of the sport joining a high performance centre in Madrid aged 15, competing at the 2004 Olympics with the Spanish team in the group all-around.
But at 21 there was no longer room for Rodriguez in the Spanish team, and she was sidelined by the national federation.
It looked as if her career was prematurely over.
She returned to her native Leon and began to train girls in her sport. It was there she crossed paths again with her childhood coach Ruth Fernandez, who encouraged her to pursue her dream.

‘Target the impossible’  
Together they decided to target the impossible — the Spanish national title — and succeeded.
Since 2009, Rodriguez has been Spanish all-around champion eight consecutive times.
It shows her extraordinary resilience to come back not only from injuries but competing at the 2004 world championships 10 days after her brother was killed in a car accident.
Her career again looked over after the 2012 London Olympics where she failed to qualify for the finals. “I went through fairly complicated surgery after London 2012 and I suspected it was the end for me because by then I was a veteran.
“But I started to feel good, had then to hope, I got into the final of the worlds and so, little by little, climbing, I’ve gotten here,” she said.
Despite not medalling in her final Olympics, Rodriguez has no regrets.
“The most important thing is to do it with my heart. I know I was born to do this sport. It’s been nice to have a 23-year career,” she said.