Mexican Twins Lia Cueva, Mia Cueva Win Worlds Medal at Just 14
They’re 14. They’re twins. Their names rhyme. And they’re World Championship medalists.
That’s the introduction that the global aquatics community has gotten to the Mexican synchro diving pair of Mia Cueva and Lia Cueva, which added some hardware Tuesday when they took bronze in the women’s 3-meter springboard synchro.
In their biggest competition yet, twins from Mexico finished third in their biggest event at the World Championships. The duo’s score of 294.36 had them in medal position the entire way, 30 points back of the Chinese gold-winning pair of Chen Jia and Chen Yiwen, with Great Britain’s Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen second.
“It’s a dream to be able to be there with the Chinese, Great Britain, and everyone else who competed,” Mia Cueva said. “It’s a dream come true because we’ve watched them since we were little, and the dream is coming true. Osmar (Olvera) is a great diver, a great friend, an example and inspiration.”
The twins made their debut on the World Cup circuit in the spring, winning silver in Guadalajara in this event. They qualified for the World Cup Super Final in Beijing in May, where they were fourth, eight points behind the British duo of Mew Jensen and Harper, the bronze medalist in the Paris Olympics.
Photo Courtesy: World Aquatics/Singapore 2025
Lia was fifth on 3-meter springboard at World Cup stops in Guadalajara and Windsor, Canada before the same placement in Beijing. Mia finished 22nd on 3-meter in Guadalajara and 19th in Windsor. The 1-meter board may be her best individual, finishing seventh on the lower board in Singapore earlier this week.
They’re not the only divers in the family. Older sister Suri Cueva competed at the junior world championships in Rio de Janeiro last fall, an event that the then 13-year-old twins were too young for.
Not surprisingly, there’s a connection between the Cueva sisters on the board.
“Sometimes we can read each other’s minds,” Lia said. “We say to each other ‘we can do it!’ and ‘vamos!’ in between dives. Before each dive we go to our coach Ivan Bautista. He tells us that we can do it, he tells us to think about how we want it to go, he tries to calm us down and motivate us so that we do well. He tells us to go for it.”
Mexico didn’t qualify a springboard synchro pair for the Paris Games. They have a stellar women’s platform duo in Gabriela Agundez and Alejandra Estudillo, which won a silver medal in Singapore.
Aranza Vazquez is an accomplished springboard diver who took bronze on 1-meter in Fukuoka in 2023. Vazquez and Maria Fernandez Garcia will compete in 3-meter in Singapore. But for one of the world’s preeminent diving nations, the Cueva sisters are likely to play a significant part. And in a meet where one of the spotlighted swimmers is a 12-year-old, the 14-year-olds from Mexico have carved out space for themselves in a big way.
