Lidiia Iakovleva

Lidiia Iakovleva was born in Russia, it was there she joined Petrozavodsk Rhythmic Gymnastics Club. Initially she danced, but rhythmic gymnastics was popular in Russia and her parents took her to try it out. Lidiia fell instantly in love with the sport. She made the move to Australia with her family at the age of seven.

Lidiia’s success began to roll out in 2013 at the national championships where she placed third in the international seven junior division. She went on to earn a consecutive bronze medal in 2014 in the international eight junior division.

Lidiia began to see a breakthrough in her performance after she attended a training camp in Russia. The training camp taught her discipline and it was a turning point for her gymnastics.

The experience brought her confidence and self-belief, it was there she realised that she wanted to pursue a career in rhythmic gymnastics. Her newly acquired skills she’d learnt in Russia, helped her rank first at the Sydney selection trials for the 2016 Pacific Rim Championships. At the Championships she placed fifth in the All-Around competition. She also claimed a bronze medal in the clubs final.

The same year, Lidiia competed as an international junior for the first time at the national championships. Her fantastic performance earned her first in rope, hoop and clubs. The following year, at the 2017 national championships she triumphed, ranking second in her overall.

At the 2018 Australian national championships, she ranked 1st overall after winning gold in all four of her finals. Lidiia was selected to represent Australia at the 2018 Youth Olympic games in Buenos Aires. At the competition she ranked 22nd individually and third in the multi-discipline team event.

She made her Olympic debut at the Tokyo Games, competing in the women's individual all-round. She finished with an overall ranking of 23rd and produced a personal best performance in the clubs, earning 22.352 for that routine.

In 2022, Lidiia was awarded a tier three scholarship under the Sport Australia Hall of Fame Scholarship and Mentoring Program and made her Commonwealth Games debut as the youngest member of the 13-strong Australian team.

She was part of the Australian trio that won silver in the team event, and as an individual she finished seventh in the all-around and sixth in hoop.