Lankan-born Tiana grabs gold in the USA Women Artistic team
Tiana Sumanasekera
Tiana Sumanasekera, a 14-year-old American gymnast from California, with a Sri Lankan descent, part of the USA team, won the gold medal in the women’s vault finals. Tiana also had the highest qualifying score in vault leading upto the finals.
Her team won the gold medal with 159.350 points by outscoring silver medalists Brazil by over 16-points.
Tiana is the first American gymnast of Sri Lankan descent to represent the USA in gymnastics at an international competition, called the Junior Pan American Games, worked off from November 25- December 5 in Cali, Columbia
Tiana started gymnastics at the age of six, completely by chance when she attended a birthday party where they had trampolines. After Tiana fell in love with the sport, her parents enrolled her to a gymnastic school. Tiana excelled in the sport by successive wins of the California State Gymnastic Championship five times in a row.
Then she started training to become an elite gymnast at the age of 11. Tiana trains around 38-hours-a-week. She is homeschooled and maintains straight A grades in her studies. Tiana’s future goals are to gain more international experience in meets and to upgrade her routines to more difficult skills.