Linoy Ashram

Ashram was born in 1999 in Rishon LeZion to a Yemeni Jewish father and a Greek Sephardi Jewish mother.[3][6] Her parents, Oren and Hedva, initially sought an ordinary after-school activity for her rather than a route into elite sport.[7] She grew up in Rishon LeZion, where a 2021 profile described her as living with her parents and younger sister.[7]

Ashram came from a working-class background and later recalled beginning her training “without infrastructure, without backing.”[6] She took up rhythmic gymnastics as a young child and entered her first international competition at age 12.[8] At 13, she briefly left gymnastics to try swimming before returning to the sport.[9]

Her school years involved a demanding combination of education and training: she traveled alone by bus from school to practice, ate packed meals between sessions, and spent much of her day training.[9] Rishon LeZion provided educational support to accommodate her schedule, and private teachers helped her prepare for examinations.[9]

Coach Ayelet Zussman guided Ashram’s development as a competitive gymnast.[7] Looking back in 2025, Ashram said that some early coaches had doubted her prospects, but that she turned those doubts into motivation and credited Zussman with recognizing her work and improvement.[5] To describe the intensity of her approach, she recalled that when asked to repeat an exercise ten times, she would do it 200 times.[5]

Ashram won bronze medals at the 2014 Junior European Championships and competed at the Youth Olympic Games in China, where she served as Israel’s closing-ceremony flag bearer.[8] In November of that year, she won her first competitive all-around gold medal in Austria.[8]

Her breakthrough at senior international level came in 2017, after she recovered from a serious meniscus injury.[7] At the European Championships in Budapest, she won bronze medals in hoop and clubs.[7] She followed those results with bronze medals in ribbon and the all-around at the World Championships in Pesaro, becoming the first Israeli rhythmic gymnast to win an individual all-around medal at the World Championships.[7][8]

At the 2018 World Championships in Sofia, Ashram won three medals, including silver in the all-around, to become the world all-around runner-up.[7][8]

Ashram won six medals at the 2019 World Championships in Baku—four silver and two bronze.[9] Her career World Championship total reached 11 medals: six silver, including her 2018 all-around silver, and five bronze.[10] At the 2019 European Games in Minsk, she won gold in clubs and ball, along with silver in the all-around and ribbon.[10]

In 2020, Ashram became European individual all-around champion in Kyiv with a total score of 100.9, narrowly defeating Belarusian gymnast Alina Harnasko.[11] Her victory came two days after Israel’s rhythmic gymnastics group won the group all-around gold medal.[11] At the 2021 European Championships, Ashram placed fourth in the all-around before winning gold in clubs and silver in hoop and ball.[10] Her clubs victory was the first European Championship gold won by an Israeli in an individual apparatus event; she also finished fourth in the ribbon final after dropping the apparatus.[10]

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics took place in 2021 following postponement because of the coronavirus pandemic.[12] Recalling her preparation, Ashram said that she had worked toward the Olympic moment for 15 years and that her feet shook during her first practice at the Tokyo venue.[4] She later said she had dreamed of reaching the Olympics without imagining that she would stand at the top of the podium.[13]

In the Olympic individual all-around final, Ashram led after the first three apparatuses—hoop, ball and clubs—and finished with 107.800 points.[14] Russia’s Dina Averina took silver with 107.650, leaving a winning margin of 0.150 points; Harnasko won bronze, and Arina Averina placed fourth.[14] Israel’s other finalist, Nicol Zelikman, finished seventh.[14]

Ashram’s final routine, in ribbon, was performed to “Hava Nagila.”[15] Although she dropped the apparatus and scored 23.300 in that routine, she retained her overall lead.[14] She later explained that, after the drop, she concentrated on retrieving the ribbon quickly and continuing as well as she could.[13] She said she had realized after her third routine that she was among the top three, but described waiting for Dina Averina’s final score as “the most stressful moment of my life.”[13][14]

The music for Ashram’s Olympic routines reflected distinct moods chosen with her coach: dramatic for hoop, joyous for ribbon, romantic for ball and groovy for clubs.[6] Her clubs routine used a mash-up of Beyoncé and Ciara songs.[6] She explained that the choice of “Hava Nagila” for ribbon was intended to bring something Israeli and Jewish to the Olympics.[6]

Ashram’s victory made her the first Israeli woman and the first Israeli rhythmic gymnast to win Olympic gold.[16] She became Israel’s third Olympic gold medalist, following windsurfer Gal Fridman in 2004 and artistic gymnast Artem Dolgopyat earlier in the Tokyo Games.[16] By the time of her Olympic victory, she had won 92 medals in international competitions.[15]

On April 4, 2022, approximately eight months after winning Olympic gold, Ashram formally announced her retirement at a press conference.[4] Aged 22, she said she had achieved her dream and reached the peak of her competitive career.[4] She planned to remain in the sport by joining the national team’s coaching staff alongside Zussman.[4] Reflecting on Tokyo at the announcement, she recalled feeling that the country was “on my shoulders.”[4]

By 2025, Ashram had completed a degree in education and sports instruction at Wingate and was coaching Israel’s junior national rhythmic-gymnastics team and the girls’ team of Hapoel Rishon LeZion.[5] She also gave talks and published an autobiography, “Dreams of Gold.”[5] Discussing the book, she spoke about having hidden food during her time as a gymnast, a subject she said she had not previously addressed publicly and found difficult to discuss, particularly because young girls might read it.[5]

Ashram’s Olympic title ended a succession of Russian individual all-around victories dating from 2000.[14] She was also the first champion in her sport from outside the former Soviet Union at an Olympics in which the former Soviet states competed.[3] Her gold contributed to Israel’s most successful Olympics to that date: the country won four medals in Tokyo and, for the first time, more than one gold medal at a single Games.[17] Alongside Ashram and Dolgopyat’s golds, Israel won bronze through Avishag Samberg in taekwondo and the mixed judo team.[17]

Ashram saw her victory as an example for gymnasts beyond the countries that had traditionally dominated the sport.[18] She said it demonstrated that rhythmic gymnastics need not be dominated by Eastern European athletes and could encourage competitors from countries whose gymnasts had not believed they could reach that level.[18] She also emphasized the significance of reaching the Tokyo final alongside Zelikman, with both Israelis finishing in the top seven—an achievement she described as unprecedented for Israeli rhythmic gymnastics.[18]

Her competitive record combined an Olympic all-around title, a European all-around title and 11 World Championship medals.[3] After retirement, her work with junior national-team gymnasts and young athletes in Rishon LeZion kept her involved in the development of Israeli rhythmic gymnastics.[5]

The narrow result in the Tokyo final prompted objections from Dina Averina and Russian gymnastics officials.[19] Averina appealed her final apparatus score, but the appeal was rejected.[14] The Russian Olympic Committee subsequently said it would seek an inquiry into the judging.[19]

The International Gymnastics Federation reviewed the competition and found “no bias or irregularities,” confirming that the results were fair and impartial.[19] Ashram said she was not angry with Averina and that athletes should accept both victories and defeats with sportsmanship.[19]