Natalya Diehm (born 23 September 1997) is an Australian cyclist who competes in

Freestyle BMX Freestyle BMX is bicycle motocross stunt riding on BMX bikes. It is an extreme sport descended from BMX racing that consists of five disciplines: street, park, vert, trails, and flatland. In June 2017, the International Olympic Committee announced t ...

. Diehm was born in Gladstone, Queensland and grew up in nearby Boyne Island. Diehm finished 6th at the 2019 UCI Urban Cycling World Championships at Australia's first appearance in the event. In 2019 she won the inaugural Oceania Championships as well as winning the Australian national title. In total she has three national titles. After recovering from her fourth knee reconstruction in late 2018, Diehm was discouraged from pursuing her Olympic ambitions and almost left the sport. However, she received motivation from

BMX racing BMX racing is a type of off-road bicycle racing. The format of BMX was derived from motocross racing. BMX bicycle racing, races are sprint races on purpose-built off-road single-lap race tracks. The track usually consists of a starting gate for u ...

world champion and Olympian

Caroline Buchanan Caroline Buchanan (born 24 October 1990) is an Australian cyclist who has won multiple world championships in BMX and mountain biking. She represented Australia at the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics in the women's BMX event. Personal Nicknamed ...

who contacted Diehm to offer encouragement and support which prompted Diehm to continue. Diehm made history as one of Australia's first Olympic BMX freestylers when the discipline made its Games debut at the

2020 Tokyo Olympic Games The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 1 ...

. As the only two Australian BMX freestylers selected, Diehm became the first Australian woman to compete in the women's event while Logan Martin will become the first Australian man to compete in the men's event. Diehm reached the women's freestyle final, but finished fifth.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Diehm, Natalya Living people 1997 births Australian BMX riders Australian female cyclists Sportswomen from Queensland Cyclists at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic cyclists for Australia 21st-century Australian women 21st-century Australian people