Lohaynny Vicente

Personal life

Vicente was born on 2 May 1996 in Rio de Janeiro. Her older sister Luana Vicente is also an international badminton player. When Lohaynny was four years old and Luana was six, their father, a drug dealer, was killed in a shootout with police. Following her father's death her mother moved the family from the west of the city to Chacrinha, a favela in the north of Rio. She now lives with her sister in Campinas, São Paulo, in a house funded by the Brazilian Badminton Federation.

Badminton

Both Vicente and her sister began playing badminton through a programme set up by a coach to teach the sport to children in the community.

At the 2014 Brazil International tournament, Vicente won a silver medal, losing to American Iris Wang in the final.

Vicente won a silver medal in the women's doubles at the 2015 Pan American Games held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, playing alongside her sister Luana. The pair defeated Daigenis Saturria and Bermary Altagracia Polanco Muñoz of the Dominican Republic in the quarterfinals then Alexander Bruce and Phyllis Chan of Canada in the semifinals. In the final they lost to the American pairing of Eva Lee and Paula Lynn Obanana by a score of 14−21, 6−21, to finish as runners-up. In the women's singles Vicente defeated Cuban Melissa Azcuy Perez then Chilean Tingting Chou before losing to eventual gold medallist Michelle Li by a score of 7–21, 8–21, in the quarterfinals.

Vicente was selected to compete for Brazil at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the women's singles as an automatic qualifier for the host nation.