Mother and daughter coach-gymnastics team off to Tokyo Olympic Games
It is a divine Olympic Games family moment as mother and daughter, gymnastic coach and athlete, prepare for the Tokyo Games.
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In a divine family sporting moment to cherish, the mother-daughter, coach-athlete team of Iuliia and Lidiia Iakovleva were expected to be named on the Australian Rhythmic Gymnastics team bound for the Tokyo Olympic Games.
It is a storyline that will surely be enunciated time and again at family milestone moments in the years ahead, as Russian-born Lidiia, aged 17, and her coach, mum Iuliia, prepare for the Games.
“If you told me take 10 years ago, even 15 years ago when I was a doctor (clinical psychiatrist) and head of a department (in Russia), if you told me I would be going to the Olympics as a coach of my daughter, I would say no, this is not possible,’’ Iuliia said.
Some fairy tale, isn’t it? “No. It is a lot of hard work and sacrifice,’’ Iuliia said. “We had many times when we were going to quit the gym. But the next day we would be here again.
“Now it has basically paid off - everything we have put in over the last eight years.’’
And it was hard, the strain of which was never more evident than in the weeks and months leading up to the Australian championships in May which would decide Lidiia’s Olympic fate.
“The training before the trial was difficult and I overcame a few things that I thought I would never be able to do,’’ said Lidiia, who has been a model of consistency winning three junior national championships and representing Australia at the Youth Olympics (2018) and senior worlds (2019). “And I guess that paid off at the competition.
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“There were things mentally at training and some physical things, the amount of routines and repetitions we did. Everyday I would come back and try to be better than I was the day before.’’
Asked would it be special to have her mother next to her on the plane going to the Olympics, Lidiia said: “I guess I am used to it, but it can be hard at times. When I have trained with other coaches, I can say it has been very different than training with my mum. It is hard to describe. It is just different.’’
Iuliia said one of the most demanding aspects of their relationship was her having to separate from being a mother to be Lidiia’s coach.
“I do love her, but I need to correct her when she is wrong on the floor. And she does not take it well sometimes, so we have our ups and downs.
“I love her, but it can be very difficult.
“But once she has finished and we are in the car we are not talking about it (disagreements on the floor) anymore. It took five years to work it out.’’
Lidiia, who thanked her dad for his support and little brother Anatoly who is my “biggest fan”, is one resilient young woman.
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While the world reeled in horror at the black cloud of COVID-19 engulfing the globe, Lidiia saw a silver lining.
“For me it was a positive because I don’t think I would have had a chance to make the Olympic team if it was last year. And I think COVID changed a lot for me and for me it was mostly a positive.’’
But even she had her demands handling the global pandemic.
Locked out of her gym at Robertson-based Aspire Gymnastics Academy, and confronted with only a home garage gym so small “I could not do much except stretch’’, Lidiia was offered the local Uniting Church hall for training.
“I guess the church helped me a lot,’’ Lidiia said.
“I guess most of the other girls (rival competitors) stayed at home and it was much harder for them (to train) than for me because I could do somewhat of a routine in the church hall.’’
The youngster also saw another positive side to the COVID-19 nationwide lockdown when she emailed rhythmic gymnastic clubs around Australia and New Zealand, offering them free online training with her.
Lidiia said she was amazed at an “overwhelming response’’ from the clubs wanting to participate, with more than 500 gymnastics from 18 clubs taking up her offer across five different time zones. “The online training also kept me busy,’’ she said.
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Lidiia was an early success story in the sport.
In 2013 at her first junior national championships, her then coach told her not to worry if she came in the top 20. But Iakovleva finished third.
“I didn’t really know what I was doing at that competition,’’ Lidiia recalled.
She had told her primary school teacher at the time, Darryl Brown, that she was going to win a medal at those championships.
Brown smiled and wished her well, but some days later his smile was broader when she appeared back at school with a bronze medal for show and tell.
A turning point in her career came when she went to a training camp in Russia organised by her mother at the end of 2015-16, then returned to represent Australia at the Pacific Rim Championships in the USA. It was then she started to believe.
“It worked out and I came first. It was not my first international competition, but it was my first big international competition. It (winning) was unexpected.
“I would not say I was nervous, I would say I was excited.’’
After that competition, her desire to compete at the 2018 Youth Olympics in Argentina heightened, a goal which she achieved, aged just 15.
She was also inspired by attending the 2018 Gold Coast-based Commonwealth Games as a spectator.
“It was quite inspiring to watch the Australian girls compete,’’ said Lidiia, who by that stage was starting to aim for the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Then, in 2019, aged 15, she was the baby of the Australian Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships team which competed in Baku. “Every competition built up my experience,’’ Lidiia said.
Making the senior side then brought the 2020 Olympics into play, rather than her original goal of the 2022 Commonwealth Games
While unusual, parent-siblings attending Olympic Games is not without precedent.
Indeed at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games Australian swimming coach Michael Bohl coached his daughter Georgia on the team.
But the Tokyo Games will be a special moment for mother and daughter. “She (Lidiia) teaches me to be determined,’’ mum said. “She has become my teacher - she has taught me a lot.’’
Lidiia added: “I am only focused on improving on my PB at the Tokyo Olympic Games, I will definitely gain valuable experience that will help me to further develop my career in coming years’’.
But she said she also believed in sporting miracle and would be aiming for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games as well.
Originally published as Mother and daughter coach-gymnastics team off to Tokyo Olympic Games
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