There may be 49 days until Rio 2016 Olympic Games begin, but we already have an Olympic record. At 106 years old, Aida Gemanque, known affectionately as Grandma Iaiá, became the oldest torchbearer in Olympic history when she carried the Rio 2016 Torch on Thursday (16 June) evening.

“I am overjoyed. I have to be grateful for this joy, which I never expected in my life. I am immensely proud,” she said just after lighting the celebration cauldron in Macapá, the capital of Amazonian state Amapá.

Grandma Iaiá broke the record formerly held by Alexander Kaptarenko who participated in the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Torch relay at the age of 101.

It is not the first record Grandma Iaiá has broken. At the tender age of 103, she entered the Guinness Book of World Records by becoming the ‘oldest skydiver’, earning her the nickname 'extreme granny.'

Thursday was a day of remarkable women for the torch relay in Macapá. The torch was also carried by Maria das Dores Rosário Almeida, 54, the great-granddaughter of slaves who is a specialist in African history and Brazilian culture, and works to preserve the history of Afro-Brazilian resistance in the region.

Almeida smiles as she carries the Olympic torch in Macapá (Photo: Rio 2016/Fernando Soutello)

She also founded the network Negras da Amazônia Brasileira (Black Women of the Brazilian Amazon) and the collective Instituto de Mulheres Negras do Amapá (The Institute of Black Women of Amapá). According to her, she was moved to create these organisations to give a voice to black people, specifically black women in the region.

“We fight for fair development and the well-being for all black women, ancestral warriors, of the present and future. This is what the Olympic flame represents for us,” she said.

The Olympic flame was welcomed to Macapá with typical Afro-Brazilian dances, music, drumming and cultural displays such as marabaixo, an Afro-Brazilian dance of joy and resistance.

The Olympic torch was greeted with Afro-Brazilian dance and music (Photo: Rio2016/Andre Luiz Mello)