Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva is a rhythmic gymnast who was awarded a Tier 2 Scholarship within the 2023 Sport Australia Hall of Fame Scholarship and Mentoring Program.
Alexandra was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 2002, before her parents decided to relocate to Australia, where they settled in Melbourne. She started gymnastics in 2005, at the age of three, when she was enrolled into kinder gym and acrobatics classes, then in 2008 she started Rhythmic Gymnastics and fell in love with the sport.
From an early age, Alexandra displayed a determination and discipline that made her one of the sports brightest prospects. In 2012 she made her debut at the Australian National Championships where she claimed gold in Ball as well as bronze in Clubs.
In 2013 Alexandra began taking part in various gymnastics camps throughout Europe where she was coached by former Olympians and World Champions. That year, at her first international tournament in Spain, she won her first international gold.
In 2016, Alexandra spent six months training in Moscow and after seeing the benefits of training with international experts, she made the decision to spend several months training at different facilities in Russia, Italy, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Croatia.
Throughout her junior years, Alexandra maintained a high ranking in Australia for her age group and competed in several international tournaments throughout New Zealand, Spain, USA, Malaysia, Japan, Greece, Israel, Italy and Singapore.
In December 2017, while still officially classified as a junior athlete, Alexandra decided to test her abilities against senior gymnasts. She entered the 2017 Luxembourg Cup and nominated for the open age category. There, she won an incredible 3 gold medals in individual apparatus competitions and finished in first place overall to take home the Championship Cup.
At 15 years old, Alexandra turned senior international level. Her first senior competition was the 2018 Commonwealth Games qualification event where she performed at a customary high level. Her success at the event meant she qualified for the 2018 Games, and she travelled to the Gold Coast as the youngest member of the Australian Gymnastic team.
Alexandra presented herself as a composed and mature athlete throughout the Games and, despite the pressure of it being her Games debut, she delivered solid performances and won individual bronze for Ball and shared another bronze medal in the team competition.
Immediately following the Commonwealth Games, Alexandra was selected to compete at her first World Cup – the first of three consecutives that she attended. Soon after this qualification event, she claimed her first senior Australian National title before travelling to Bulgaria in September for the World Championships held in Sofia.
Alexandra’s impressive performances continued into 2019, as she was chosen to represent Australia at four World Cup events. That same year she went on a golden run to realise her potential and become Australia’s absolute rhythmic gymnastics champion when she claimed gold in All Around and each individual apparatus. The most important event of that year was the 2019 World Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan as it was not only the top event on the schedule, it was also a qualification event for the 2021 World Games. Her performances saw her beat the other competitors from Oceania on her way to automatically qualifying for the World Games with a nominative continental quota.
2020 started exceptionally well for Alexandra when she won gold, silver, and bronze at the Berlin Masters International Tournament. Then, just days before she was scheduled to departure for the Pacific Rim gymnastics tournament in New Zealand, the COVID-19 pandemic hit which resulted in mass cancellations of the Olympic qualification event and World Cup series.
This time spent away from the mat during multiple lockdowns and quarantine periods, was spent wisely by Alexandra as she successfully graduated from High School and was accepted into Monash University to study a Law (Honours) degree.
She spent nearly a year training in the garage, living room and backyard before international competitions began to be scheduled again. In July 2021 Alexandra departed Australia on a one-way ticket to a ‘wide world of sport’, training out of Moscow and taking part in competitions in Greece and Russia and was getting back into shape, well and truly putting the previous 12-months behind her.
Her fist major competition was a World Challenge Cup in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, where she achieved a personal best ranking at a World Cup event finishing 12th in Hoop and 14th All Around. In October 2021, Alexandra was the only Australian gymnast to travel to Japan for the World Championship in Kitakyushu where she gave the best World Championship performance of her career up to date and finished 36th in All Around.
In December that same year, Alexandra was invited to take part in a unique experimental tournament ‘Divine Grace’ in Moscow, where athletes were asked to compete under a modified 2004 code of points system that was complimentary of high difficulty routine elements – Alexandra placed 7th.
Around the same time, she was looking to relocate her training base to another country and sent a request to the Azerbaijan Gymnastics Federation to allow her to train in their state of art facilities. The National Gymnastics Centre in Baku kindly accepted her request and she’s since continued to train with the Azerbaijan National Team.
The 2022 competition season began for Alexandra at the Tashkent World Cup where she once again improved her ranking, finishing 12th All Around and placing inside the top 10 in Clubs.
In May 2022 after 9 months abroad, Alexandra returned home to take part in the Australian and Oceania Gymnastics Championships. She was victorious at the Australian National Titles and led the Australian Team to victory over New Zealand at the Oceania Championships.
Once again, Alexandra set sail on a major ‘Games Tour’. Her first stop of the tour was in Birmingham, Alabama at The World Games 2022 – an event she had originally qualified for in 2019. In a world-class field, Alexandra finished superbly with 12th, 14th, 15th and 20th placings – these were the highest results any Australian rhythmic gymnast had achieved at the event.
From Alabama, Alexandra flew to Tel Aviv in Israel where she competed in the World’s third biggest multi-sport event, the Maccabiah Games, and claimed five bronze medals. This was another history making moment for Alexandra as it was the first time in games history where Australian rhythmic gymnasts competed at the event.
In 2022, Alexandra’s was ranked the #36 rhythmic gymnast in the world and the #1 ranked in Australia.
After graduating her Honours in law at Monash University, Alexandra has ambitions of combining her love and expertise in sport with her chosen career path to practice sports law. This is something she is already taking steps towards with her involvement in the safeguarding working group of the Gymnastics Ethics Foundation.
“Being a successful SAHOF Scholarship recipient first of all is a great honour. I see it as a recognition and acknowledgement of my achievements up to date as an athlete as well as an opportunity to gain assistance to excel in my sport. The SAHOF Scholarship is a pathway to connect to the Greats of All Time in Australian Sport. It is also a partnership where with SAHOF Scholarship assistance and though my successes I can inspire other athletes.” – Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva on being selected as a 2023 Tier 2 Scholarship Holder.
Honours & Achievements
- 2018: Gold Coast Commonwealth Games – Bronze (individual)
- 2018: Gold Coast Commonwealth Games – Bronze (team)
- 2021: Maccabi Victoria Hall of Fame Inductee
- 2022: Maccabiah Games – 5 x Bronze
- 2022: The World Games – 12th, 14th, 15th and 20th
- 2022: Australian Gymnastics Championships – Gold
- 2022: Tashkent World Cup – 12th AA and 10th, 12th, 14th, 15th
- 2022: #26 in the world
- 2022: #1 in Australia
- 2023: Sport Australia Hall of Fame Scholarship Holder
