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Quick Facts
| Full Name | Shantessa Leiliani Pama |
| Nickname | Tessa |
| Birthdate | March 5, 1991 |
| Birthplace | Kona, Hawaii |
| Birthplace | Dana Point, California |
| Height | 4'7" |
| School | Dana Hills High School
Marco Forster Middle School |
| Grade | 10th (Fall of 2006) |
| Family | parents Stacey and Shawn, stepdad Kui, baby sister Kaili (05/28/04) |
| Pets | dogs Aloha and Ekahi |
| Career Ambition | archaeologist, teacher, writer |
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In The Gym
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| Level | Junior International Elite |
| Club | GymMax in Costa Mesa, since 1999 |
| Coaches | Howie & Jenny Liang |
| Choreographer | Natasha Matveeva |
| National Team Years | 2 (2004-2005, 2005-2006) |
| First Started | Age 7, after my old coach found me on the beach doing cartwheels and asked me to come to her gym! |
| Goals | Make the National again in 2006, make a World competition, and have a skill named after me. The Olympics would be awesome,
but I really want a scholarship to Stanford or UCLA! |
| Role Model | my parents |
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Favorites List
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| Band | Outkast |
| Color | baby pink |
| Event | floor |
| Food | crab |
| Gymnast | Terin Humphrey, Li Li, Elvire Teza, Nadia Comaneci |
| Leotard | Dreamlight |
- My middle name Leiliani is Hawaiian for "angel from heaven"
- I am Hawaiian, Filipino, Chinese, Dutch, Swedish! They just call me mixed plate!
 - I go to the river one week every summer to go jet skiing and I like surfing in the summer.
- I like to collect anything with frogs!
- Before moving to GymMax in 1999, I trained at Kona Aerials Hawaii with coach Nanette Turpin!
- I fly to Hawaii two weeks every year to visit my family that lives there and work out with my old coach.
- I just started taking Hula lessons.
- I act in community theater every summer!
- If I wasn't a gymnast, I would be a dancer!
- My favorite thing to do is watch scary movies on rainy days with my mom and dad.
- Tessa shares her birthday with gymnasts Jacqui Dunn (1984, Australia) and Vanda Hadarean (1976, Romania) - they were both
World Championships competitors!
- Tessa's choreographer, Natasha Matveeva, was a coach and choreographer in the Soviet Union from 1978-1991! She is responsible
for choreographing some of the best floor routines of all time! She trained with Svetlana Boginskaya, Tatiana Lysenko, Natalia
Kalinina, Tatiana Gutsu, and Dina Kochetkova. She was also a rhythmic gymnast herself.
 - Gym Max is the former home of 2001 World Championships bronze medallist Tabitha Yim and 2004 Olympic Team alternate
Allyse Ishino, as well as junior international elite Ivana Hong. Tabitha and Allyse both go to Stanford now!
- Tessa was featured in the Inside Gymnastics "50 Most Photogenic"
gymnasts of 2005! The issue was on newstands starting March 2006.
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