By Dhammika Ratnaweera
Anna-Marie Ondaatje, the Canadian-born female rhythmic gymnast of Sri Lankan descent showed her fine performance to win Switzerland first-ever International Rhythmic Gymnastics Competition, thee Zurich Cup 2020 recently. The Sports Centre Gries in Volketswil, Switzerland was the venue for the first-ever International Competition of Rhythmic Gymnastics in the country where over 300 gymnasts from 18 countries all over Europe, including Switzerland, competed at this event.
The victory of the Zurich Cup 2020 is more important for Anna Marie for her Olympic dream. She has already represented Asian Games and Commonwealth Games for Sri Lanka. In the Rhythmic Gymnastics event, Anne-Marie Ondaatje won Gold representing Sri Lanka. She will be looking to score an Olympic qualification throughout the next six months leading up to Tokyo 2020. If she will qualify for the Olympics she will be first Sri Lankan Rhythmic Gymnastics player to represent the Olympics.
The 19-year-old Anna pursuing a professional career in gymnastics in its many forms. She has competed in both national level competitions in Canada and international events representing Canada, then choosing to switch and compete for Sri Lanka in international gymnastics events.
She became the first rhythmic gymnast to represent Sri Lanka at the Commonwealth Games, after creating history for the nation at the Commonwealth Games 2018 in Gold Coast. She was also revealed to be one of just four female gymnasts from Sri Lanka to represent at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Ondaatje qualified to represent Sri Lanka at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta as well, being the only gymnast from Sri Lanka to have progressed to compete at the 2018 Asian Games which also marked her maiden Asian Games event. Anna presently coach by Svetlana Joukova expected to go long journey from this sport.
She initially took the discipline of artistic gymnastics at the age of nine but her father Alistair suggested Anna-Marie engaged in rhythmic gymnastics to focus on the flexibility considering the feminine oriented discipline, a suitable option, unlike the artistic gymnastics.
After switching from artistic gymnastics to rhythmic gymnastics, Anna-Marie has competed at the provincial and national level Championships in Canada.] She also took part at the 2014 Pacific Rim Gymnastics Championships representing Canada and finished fourth in a junior group event. However, she went onto represent Sri Lanka at the first time in 2017 World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships which was also her first senior-level competition for the nation and became the first-ever gymnast to compete for Sri Lanka at an international rhythmic gymnastics championship In her debut International event She competed in the individual qualification event and finished on 75th position with 42.400 total points.
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