Griffith dancer Lara Salvestro made her debut as a cheerleader for NRL club Sydney Roosters recently, featuring in their round two match against the New Zealand Warriors at Allianz Stadium.

Ms Salvestro took the stage in the pre-match entertainment for the 2022 NRL Grand Final as a backup dancer in front of 100,000 people

Aged 21, she has been a student at Shannon Dance Studio for more than a decade.

On achieving a longtime goal, she wanted to dispel some myths about cheerleading.

“When I tell people I’m a cheerleader, they change the way they look at me. They seem to think it’s something you do when you can’t do anything else.

“But it’s incredibly challenging. In two hours, we learned 32 different dance combinations. That’s very tough mentally and very strenuous.”

Ms Salvestro grew up on a farm in the small village of Warrawidgee and worked for Griffith’s Collier and Miller before landing her current role at the NSW State Emergency Service. But her true passion is dance; she says she has loved performing in front of crowds since she took up the sport at six.

She was the only dancer in a household full of basketballers and did jazz, lyrical, contemporary, point and ballet with Shannon Hart of Shannon Dance Studio.

A pivotal moment in her career came in 2017, when Shannon Dance Studio students toured the United States.