Renata Costa

Personal life

Car accident

In October 2007, Costa crashed her Opel Corsa into another car at a level crossing. She and the front seat passenger Michele suffered minor injuries. Another Botucatu teammate, 16-year-old Cátia Oliveira, was asleep in the back seat and suffered a spinal cord injury, resulting in paraplegia. Costa was fined $576 for driving without a licence. Cátia, who had been called up to the Brazil women's national under-17 football team on the day of the accident, later trained as a para table tennis player and represented Brazil at the 2016 Rio Paralympics.