An Indian American girl is determined to roller skate her way to the future

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Aashita Joshi, a 9-year-old Indian American in Edison, New Jersey, recently won a gold medal in the America’s Cup in January and has won many other roller skating tournaments since 2015.

According to the Team USA website, the America’s Cup is a USA Roller Sports (USARS) that is recognized by the International Roller Sports Federation (FIRS) and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) as the National Governing Body of competitive roller sports in the U.S.

“I go to roller skating practice about four to five times a week including Saturdays and I try my best during each tournament,” Aashita told News India Times.

“When she was 3-years-old, she just woke up one day and told us that she wanted roller skates from Santa. At first I was scared because no one in our family had ever pursued roller skating before, but I eventually got the plastic roller skates from WalMart so that she could skate around the house at least,” Vandana Joshi, Aashita’s mother, told News India Times.

Vandana said that she gets very emotional when it comes to Aashita’s roller skating because she when she began roller skating, Vandana was afraid that Aashita would fall and get hurt, but now she can’t believe that her daughter is actually winning tournaments left and right today.

Aashita, a fourth grader at James Madison Intermediate School in Edison, New Jersey, said that she loves roller skating so much that she wants to continue it for the rest of her life.

“When I grow up I want to be a roller skating coach as well as a public health professional like my dad,” she said.

“I think every child’s talent should come out,” said Ashish Joshi, Aashita’s father, who told News India Times that he deals with students on a daily basis as the Associate Dean of Student Affairs and an Associate Professor of Population Health Informatics at the Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy at City University of New York.

Aashita and her family moved to New Jersey from Nebraska in 2014 and she started taking part in roller skating tournaments the year after, today she coaches’ younger children who are interested in the sport.

“I really wanted to teach younger children how to roller skate, so I asked my coach if I could help out,” Ashita said.

When asked whether or not she has lost or has not done so well during her tournaments, Ashish said “it’s not about winning or losing. You need to fall in order to get up,” adding that roller skating for Aashita is more of a passion than a competition.

“As parents, I feel we should enable and show our children the right path. I want her to inspire others,” Ashish said.

“She is a very determined child. She works hard to get what she wants,” Vandana added.

Besides roller skating, Aashita loves art and her favorite subjects in school are math and science.

Here is a list of all the tournaments that Aashita has won: