Kiera, who received a full scholarship from Bond University to study Architecture Design, described leaving the love and security of her family as the leap of faith she had to make for her sporting dream to become a reality.

“It was always my goal to be on an Olympic team,” Kiera said, as competition in Paris began overnight.

“I watched the Olympics when I was very young and even before I discovered artistic swimming, my dream was to compete at the Games.

“The actual sport didn’t matter, I just wanted that title ‘Olympian’.

“When I was eight, I saw artistic swimming for the first time and I remember being impressed by the movement in the water. It was so different to the lap swimming session I was doing.

“But when I saw those movements, I honestly thought I wasn’t old enough for artistic swimming. Even at that young age I appreciated that, technically, it’s a very difficult sport.

“I thought I’d need to wait a few years before I could try that, but I was wrong. My swim coach at the time, Katrina Hall, told mum the Sydney Emeralds were looking for 12s-and-under to start a team, and the rest is history.”

Now 22, Kiera and her American-born mother, had such little knowledge about the sport they were surprised to learn there were competitions.

But Kiera progressed through the ranks at such a rapid rate that she was selected for the national senior team that competed at the world championships in Budapest at just 15.

“It was life changing,” Kiera said.

“I came back from Hungary wanting to develop my skills, but my club was quite small. However, the head coach of the Gold Coast Mermaids rang my mother asking if I wanted to move to Queensland to train there because he thought I could remain on the national team full time.

“It was a decision I obviously didn’t take lightly. I was lucky because when I was 12, I met Orla McCann from the Gold Coast at the national championships in Perth. We also trained alongside each other at training camps and became besties.

“Our parents got along very well, and thankfully the McCann’s were happy for me to live with them. So, I moved to another state on my own where I started at a new high school. When I look back, there’s no regrets at all.

“The McCann’s were very good to me and besides everything, I gained (a lot artistic swimming wise) from the move – and I also gained a second family.”

Kiera and her teammates enter the Paris 2024 Olympic Games with something no Australian team has ever had before - some glittering World Cup medals.

The team made history in April by winning two silver and a bronze medal in the World Aquatics Cup team events in Beijing.

The medals represent the progress the team continues to make under the direction of coaches Paula Klamburg, who won a bronze medal for Spain at the 2012 London Games, and assistant coach, Shoko Ono from Japan.

“To see how far Australia has come since I made the team in 2017 is unbelievable,” Kiera said.

“This is the first time we’ve made consistent improvements in every single competition we’ve gone to.”

Daniel Lane