Junior squash champion, Tiana Parasrampuria’s tight match schedule has kept her from celebrating her ICSE class X board’s milestone achievement of 98.6 percent. The 16-year-old student of the Mumbai-based Bombay Scottish High School is yet to return to the country since she travelled to Europe for the German junior open, Hamburg (July 1-4) and the Dutch junior open, Amsterdam (July 7-10) tournaments.
Tiana, who has been playing squash since age 10 has always followed an intensive training schedule of four to five hours a day. Though normally adept at balancing her training sessions and studies, her class X experience remains her toughtest. With the Asian junior squash trial matches taking place just 10 days before (April 12-17) the ICSE boards scheduled April 26 and the Asian junior squash championships being hosted right after (June 15-19), Tiana struggled to find time to study when not undergoing rigorous training.
Missing two to three days a week on an average during her preparation for the Asian junior open championship, Tiana tried to cover up her school work whenever possible, even during tournaments.
“Balancing my studies and sport has always been important to me. I missed a lot of school this year as I knew I had to keep in touch with my squash despite the boards coming up. However, I was confident about my results since I had worked hard throughout the year. Of course, I could do well because my parents supported me and the school principal and teachers went out of their way to help me,” says the youngster.
Tiana who trained under five times national squash champion, Ritwik Bhattacharya went on to win the bronze medal in the girl’s under-17 category at the Asian juniors squash championships, Pattaya, Thailand. She was selected by the Sports Authority of India to represent India as top seed.
“My agenda for the future is to retain the national title later this year and win more laurels for my country. I hope to continue managing academics with my sport this year too. I plan to pursue biology whilst playing squash,” adds Taina who has chalked out plans to have a grand celebration with family and friends when back in the country.
Tiana will be representing India at the US junior open in December this year and the British junior open world championships in January 2023.
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