Mariana Gertum Becker (born 1971) is a Brazilian sports journalist and television reporter for
Rede Bandeirantes. Since being employed by Rede Globo in 1995, she has covered association football, extreme sports, water sports, the
World Surf League,
Formula One motor racing, the Sertões International Rally, and the
2016 Summer Olympics in
Rio de Janeiro over the course of her career. In 2021, she stopped working for
Rede Globo and started working for
Rede Bandeirantes.
Biography
Becker was born in 1971 in
Porto Alegre.[1][2] She is the daughter of a gynecologist and an English literature graduate,[3] and is one of five children in her family.[2][3][4] All five children were given equal treatment from their father.[4] Becker began attending
surfing championships from age 15, doing radio bulletins on the sport,[2] and was about the age of 17 when she began writing articles on women she found to be interesting.[1] In 1989, she enrolled at the Faculty of Social Communications of the
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul. Becker studied Sociology for half a year and attended radio journalism and semiotic classes. She wrote an article about surfer champion Andrea Lopes, which was published in the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper.[5] In 1994, Becker graduated from the university due to her remaining her for one more semester to complete the Course Completion Work on invasion of privacy and breakable and unbreakable barriers for journalists. During the course, she worked at Jornal Vertical,
Ipanema FM [
pt] and Zero Hora.[5]
In 1995, Becker travelled to
Rio de Janeiro to take up employment with
Rede Globo television network as a reporter at a time when women were scarce in the sport newsroom departments of Brazil in an environment populated 95 per cent of the time by men.[6][7] She found the environment to be unwelcoming,[7] but went on to cover
association football,
extreme sports and
water sports for Rede Globo as well as the
World Surf League in the islands of
Hawaii and
Tahiti in 2003 and 2004.[8] In 2007, Becker began to cover
Formula One motor racing for Rede Globo as a presenter.[1][3] She also reported at the Sertões International Rally in 2009, which broadened her knowledge of motor racing. Becker was a reporter at the
2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.[6] She is also called out to breaking news stories by Rede Globo when required.[2] Following the postponement of the
2020 Formula One World Championship by motorsport's world governing body, the
Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, for three months due to the
COVID-19 pandemic,[1][9] she travelled to the five of the season's rounds by car and not by air travel to avoid spending a plethora of time indoors.[10]
Personal life and approach Becker is fluent in four languages, something she demonstrated during Rede Globo's broadcast of the
2020 Tuscan Grand Prix,[11] likes animals,[4][5] and prefers to eat healthy foods.[4] She says she wakes up early in order to venture to the race circuit as preparation for the network's broadcast of a Grand Prix and continues to work in the immediate area until late at night.[4]
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abcTimm, Nicolle (8 September 2015).
"A Famecos me abriu portas para um mundo novo" [“Famecos opened doors for me to a new world”] (in Portuguese). Eu Sou Famecos.
Archived from the original on 10 September 2016. Retrieved 17 September 2020.