Liv Lovelace

Liv Lovelace remembers being instantly hooked by the “borderlessness” of her sport when she had her first ride on a skateboard as an eight-year-old.

“Just the freedom,” she said. “Being able to be a little kid and kind of run away in my own little world and get lost, and I feel like it gave me an outlet to become the person that I am.”

Even these days, as one of the top-ranked street skateboarders in the world, she still feels he same way.

“All my friends are around skating and I just like being able to go skating by myself and put headphones in or listen to the world go by and be in my own world,” Liv said. “It's my happy place.”

Liv represented Australia at the Skateboarding World Championships in 2018 and 2019 and was on track for the Tokyo Olympics – where skateboarding made its debut – when injury intervened.

She broke her arm in two places while skating in Melbourne in the build-up to the Games. The injury required three operations and kept her off her board for seven months. Then there was a second fall that left her with ankle ligament damage and another three months out of action.

But she returned to take third place at the Oceania Championships and fourth place at the national championships, before taking on the 2022 World Championships where she finished 10th. 

Liv continued to perform on the world skateboarding tour through 2023, boosting her ranking to 18.

She ensured her place at the Paris Games by finishing with a ranking of 15 after the final event of the Olympic qualification series in Budapest.

In Paris Liv left nothing in tank with her runs and ended the competition in 21st position.