Daria Joura

Daria "Dasha" Joura (Дарья Владимировна "Даша" Иoурa; born 2 May 1990) is a retired Australian gymnast.

The family moved to Australia in 1997 when Vladimir Joura accepted an offer to coach at the Western Australian Institute of Sport (WAIS).

Joura began gymnastics at the age of 6 at the Olympic Academy in Russia, because she was "always at the gym" with her parents.

After the family emigrated, she trained at WAIS with coaches Martine George and Nikolai Lapchine.

Joura competed in her first Australian National Championships in 2001, winning the all-around title, two silver medals on the floor exercise and vault, and a bronze on the balance beam in the junior national division.

In 2003, she moved up to the junior international division, winning the national all-around title and placing second on vault and floor.

She also competed internationally for the first time in 2003, when she placed 6th in the all-around at the Canberra Cup.

In 2005, Joura missed Nationals with an injury, but competed in several other events, including the Australian Youth Olympic Festival where she won a silver in the team competition and floor gold and the Japan Junior International meet.

Her fifth-place finish in the all-around was the second best ever by an Australian gymnast, after Monette Russo's bronze all-around medal in 2005.

Joura also competed in the uneven bars event final, where she came in sixth.

Following the World Championships, Joura competed in two World Cup meets, the DTB Cup in Stuttgart, Germany and the Glasgow Grand Prix in Scotland.

She won a silver on floor in Stuttgart and a bronze medal on the uneven bars in Glasgow.

At the trials for the 2006 Commonwealth Games shortly after she fell several times and was not placed on the team.

Her first international meet as a senior was the Pacific Alliance Championships, where she was on the silver medal-winning Australian team.

At the 2006 Australian National Championships she finished in first place in the all-around and every apparatus but the uneven bars.

She then won a bronze medal on the floor at a World Cup competition in Shanghai.

Joura's first major international competition was the 2006 World Championships in Aarhus.

She helped the Australian team to a sixth-place finish, and competed on every apparatus in the team finals.

She began 2007 at the American Cup in Jacksonville, Florida.

During this competition Joura successfully debuted a number of new skills, including a Comaneci Salto on bars.

In May, Joura went on to win her second consecutive Australian all-around title at the National Championships in Melbourne, as well as golds on vault, uneven bars, floor and in the team event with her Western Australian team.

She finished 5th in the beam event final.

The 2007 Nationals were held in conjunction with a dual meet against World champion Chinese team.

Australia beat China in the team event, Joura went on to place 6th on uneven bars, 8th on balance beam and 2nd on floor behind Cheng Fei.

In preparation for the upcoming 2007 World Championships, Joura then competed in a similar dual competition against Japan, where she won gold medals in the team, all-around, vault and floor events, plus a bronze on beam.

She went into the 2007 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships as a medal contender in the team and the all-around.

Joura did not have the best of competitions at the 2007 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.

In the preliminary competition, Joura fell on the uneven bars and balance beam, but stuck her Yurchenko-double vault and performed a floor routine that qualified her for the all-around final.

She did not qualify for the floor or the vault event final.

She is a triple Australian senior all-around champion and competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics and the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in 2006 and 2007.

Daria Joura was born in Leninsk-Kuznetsky, the daughter of Vladimir and Irina Joura, both gymnastics coaches.

The Australian team finished in 11th place, missing the teams final but qualifying through to the 2008 Olympic Games.

At the Good Luck Beijing Tournament, the test event for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Joura qualified first to the all-around final with four hit routines out of four.

She repeated this showing in the final, and won the silver medal.

She won the bronze on uneven bars, placed fourth on floor, and fifth on beam.

Joura began her Beijing preparations in 2008 by agreeing to write weekly columns for PerthNow, which is a division of Perth's Sunday Times Newspaper, about her progress.

Joura was the only Australian woman to qualify for the all-around final, where she finished 10th after errors on bars and beam.

In October, Joura headed back to Stuttgart for the DTB World Cup event with teammate Lauren Mitchell.

After qualifying for all four apparatus event finals, Joura won a bronze on vault, a silver on uneven bars and a gold on floor – her first at a World Cup competition and the most medals she's won in one international competition.

She was the most decorated gymnast of the meet.