Tijana Korent is a Croatian artistic gymnast. She is a vault specialist, and she qualified for the vault event finals at the 2020 and 2013 European Championships. In 2013, she became the first Croatian female gymnast to qualify for an event final at the European Championships.

Tijana Korent was born on 27 April 1989, in Čakovec. Her mother put her into gymnastics classes at the age of four. She has a degree in sports management from the Polytechnic of Medimurje in Cakovec, and she speaks English in addition to Croatian. She wants to become a gymnastics judge after she retires. She currently works as an accountant, and she frequently volunteers at a cat shelter.

She competed at the 2006 World Championships where she finished 121st in the all-around with a score of 48.600. In 2007, she injured her ankle and could not compete for two years. She competed at the 2011 World Championships where she finished 18th on vault in the qualification round.

At the 2013 European Championships, she qualified to the vault event final where she finished in 8th place with a score of 13.183. This was the first time that a Croatian female had qualified for an event final at the European Championships.

During the 2019 FIG World Cup series, she won the bronze medal on vault at the World Cup in Mersin, Turkey, and the silver medal on vault at the World Cup in Guimaraes, Portugal. She qualified for the vault event final at the 2020 World Cup in Baku before the event finals were canceled due to COVID-19.

She competed at the 2020 European Championships along with Ana Đerek, Christina Zwicker, Tina Zelčić, and Petra Furač. The team finished in 6th place, and Korent finished 8th in the vault final.

At the 2022 European Championships in Munich, Korent finished sixteenth on vault during the qualification round.

Medal record Representing Croatia

The Artistic Gymnastics World Cup is a competition series for in 2007, she injured her ankle and could not compete for two years. Sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG).

Women Fitness President Ms. Namita Nayyar catches up with Tijana Korent is an exceptionally talented Croatian artistic gymnast, winner of gold medal on vault at the 2023 World Cup, here she talks about her fitness routine, her diet, and her success story.

Namita Nayyar:

You were born in Čakovec, Croatia. Where did you have your early education? Your mother put you into gymnastics classes at the age of four. You have a degree in sports management from the Polytechnic of Medimurje in Cakovec. You competed at the 2006 World Championships where you finished 121st in the all-around with a score of 48.600.This later propelled your career to the height where for you became the first time a Croatian female gymnast had qualified for an event final at the European Championships. Tell us more about your professional journey of exceptional hard work, tenacity, and endurance?

Tijana Korent:

Well, my gymnastics career started off at young age, I was 4 when I first stepped in to the gymnastics hall, and fell in love with the sport.

There is a lot of hours of training that needs to be put in to it, before you can even go to your first competition, and this is probably the hardest thing about gymnastics, that sometimes, you can’t see the results as fast as you would want. But with a lot of support and encouragement from my family and friends (and later on my husband as well) I just kept going and believing in myself. And the results came after that. I am beyond proud being the first Croatian female gymnast to get in to the European championship finals, and writing the history of Croatian gymnastics.

Namita Nayyar:

It is a dream for a gymnast to play in the FIG World Cup. During the 2019 FIG World Cup series, you won the bronze medal on vault at the World Cup in Mersin, Turkey, and the silver medal on vault at the World Cup in Guimaraes, Portugal. Tell us more about these spectacular achievements of yours?

Tijana Korent:

Of course it’s a dream being a part of such big competitions. You always hope that day will come, that you will come to a big stage and shine. And I managed to do it quite a few times. It makes me very happy but also it is a huge push forward giving you the inspiration to try and do more and to keep going. I also won gold in World cup in Bulgaria in 2023, and silver at World Cup in Koper 2024, and was 2nd at world challenge ranking list on vault for 2023 and 2024, so I’m hoping there is a lot more to come as well.

Full Interview is Continued on Next Page

This interview is exclusive and taken by Namita Nayyar President of womenfitness.net and should not be reproduced, copied, or hosted in part or full anywhere without express permission.

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Disclaimer
The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

As we enter 2025, the world again looks to the future with hope, anticipation, and a desire for change. For many, the start of a new year is a chance to reset, reimagine, and refocus on personal and professional goals. Leading this charge are influential women from across the globe—celebrities who inspire us with their talents, resilience, and vision.

In this exclusive feature, we delve into the resolutions and messages from some of the most inspiring women celebrities, showcasing how they plan to make 2025 a year of transformation. Whether focusing on mental health, championing social causes, or embracing new creative ventures, their journeys remind us that every resolution is a step toward becoming our best selves.

Here’s how these remarkable women plan to make 2025 unforgettable.

“My two 2025 new year resolutions are to spend less time on my phone at night, and get back to and maintain my peak performance weight which is 8lbs lighter than I am at this moment. My message is to get after your goals regardless of how scary they may be. Start small and work your way up. Write your own path if you have to. Just believe in yourself 100% of the time!”

Kristen Nuss – American beach volleyball player,
Six times Gold Medalist FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour

“Embrace each moment & find the good in the moment as my fiance does so well!”

Taryn Kloth – American beach volleyball player
Bronze Medalist 2023 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship

“My resolution for the new year is to honor the importance of mental and emotional health in my physical workouts. My message for women everywhere is to remember that we are whole beings: body, mind, and heart, and they work together for our overall health. Let’s take care of the whole self and not just body parts in 2025. Happy New Year.”

Desi Bartlett –
Yoga, Health and Wellness Expert

“My new year’s resolution is to develop habits to create an attitude of gratitude. To do this I am going to incorporate writing down 3 things that I am grateful/proud of in my morning routine. We all can get so caught up in the future and what we wish to accomplish that we forget to be grateful and proud of what we already have and who we already are. My new year’s wish for Women Fitness subscribers is that you find strength, resilience, and solidarity in the face of adversity. May we continue to rise together this year, supporting each other, as we fight for justice, equality, and freedom. Given the challenges women face, it’s more important than ever that we support one another.”

Laneah Bryan – US Flag Football Athlete
Twice Gold Medalist Flag Football World Championships

“My New Year’s resolution for 2025 would not only focus on performance, mental toughness and recovery, like in the last few years. I will in fact play in the Beach Volleyball World Tour with a new teammate, and we have committed ourselves to playing a faster and an even more athletic game, contributing to bringing our sport to the next level. This will require perfect technical alignment, clocking of movements, and harmony. No secret sauce anyway: sticking to a structured routine, consistently chasing the smallest improvement, and measuring the daily progress is the key to long-term growth. And doing it with someone at your side having the same goals, makes it fun! My message for the Women Fitness viewers and subscribers is to enjoy any change in your life; in most of the cases they come unplanned, but they bring along always new opportunities. It is up to you to chase them!”

Valentina Gottardi – Italian beach volleyball player
Silver medal at the European Championship

Disclaimer
The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

In fact, the latest scientific research shows that eating shrimp is hazardous to your health. The following are the top 10 reasons to keep prawns off your plate:

1- Poop Cocktail

During cleaning, shrimp have their legs torn off and are decapitated and disemboweled. As their bowels are ripped out, poop spills out and often gets all over the shrimp.

2- Extra Skin

Shrimp are bottom dwellers who feed on parasites and skin that they pick off dead animals. This means that every mouthful of scampi you eat comes with digested parasites and dead skin.

3- Juiced Jambalaya

Most of the shrimp consumed comes from places that have no restrictions on traces of illegal contaminants such as dioxins, PCBs, and other banned chemicals or on pumping the shrimp full of hormones and antibiotics!

4- Dolphin-Safe Shrimp?

Trawling is taking a toll on the legions of wild creatures, including dolphins, who make the sea their home. Nets don’t discriminate.

5- Farming Destroys Fish Too

Shrimp farming is fatal to fish! Because it takes up to 3 pounds of wild-caught fish to feed and produce a single pound of farmed shrimp, shrimp farming is causing fish populations to plummet.

6- Slave Labor

Almost all shrimp farms and shrimp processing plants are located in developing countries, where workers are forced to work long hours for minimal pay. Eating meat supports unethical employers!

7- Too Neat to Eat!

With more than 2,500 species of shrimp, scientists are just beginning to scratch the surface of these fascinating animals largely unknown behavioral characteristics.

8- Cholesterol Bombs

With a whopping 152 milligrams of cholesterol per 100-gram serving of shrimp (four or five shrimp), just two servings would put you over the daily recommended allowance of 300 milligrams of cholesterol!



9- Bad Karma

Many major world religions, including Judaism, treat shrimp as dirty meat. If you’re hell-bent on good karma, better ditch the shrimp.

10- Shrimply Fantastic Faux!

Forget the reel deals More and more sham shrimp are making their way onto restaurant menus. You can also trawl the frozen-food section of your local supermarket or specialty store to find faux shrimp and dozens of other mock meats.

If you’re fishing for a heart-smart diet that is healthy, fish-friendly, and good for the environment, a vegetarian diet is the perfect catch. Plant-based diets have proved to actually reverse heart disease and reduce the risk of cancer, diabetes, and obesity.

Disclaimer
The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

As told to Nicole Audrey Spector

I was 43 years old, a teacher turned stay-at-home mom of three and in great physical shape. I had always been super on top of my health. Any routine screenings, like Pap tests and mammograms, I had right on time, and I was always very in tune with my body.

So, when I came down with a cough that just wouldn’t quit, I took action fast and went to my primary care provider (PCP). She diagnosed me with a post-viral cough. I was prescribed steroids, which knocked out the cough completely. But once I finished them, the cough came back worse than before.

My PCP was out, so I saw another provider. He suspected I had exercise-induced asthma and told me I needed to see an allergist. I made an appointment, but they couldn’t get me in for six months.

As I waited for that appointment, I knew something was really wrong. Not only did I have a terrible cough, I also had a heaviness in my chest that reminded me of when I’d had pneumonia years prior. So I asked my PCP for a chest X-ray. Initially he refused my request, saying it would be a waste of time because my lungs were too clear.

But I insisted and finally my PCP (who would say snide things like, “I’m the doctor here,”) gave me one. After reviewing my X-ray, he called to say I had pneumonia and put me on antibiotics. I took them as prescribed but they made no difference. Once I was done with them, I was put on stronger antibiotics. But even once those were finished, there was no improvement in my symptoms.

I was then diagnosed with antibiotic-resistant pneumonia, and spent four days in the hospital, where I saw a pulmonologist. He performed a procedure called a bronchoscopy to look in my lungs for any abnormalities like a mass, which would then be biopsied for further testing.

The pulmonologist told me that everything looked great and that residual pneumonia could take a while to resolve. I was instructed to follow up with my PCP in a week and with him, the pulmonologist, in two weeks.

A week later, I was still in horrible shape with the same painful, constant cough and heaviness in my chest. I called my PCP and they said they had no availability to see me. So what did I do? I went in person and refused to leave until, eventually, a nurse practitioner came out.

I think the nurse practitioner came out more to conduct a mental health check than a physical exam — but once she saw and listened to me, she sent me out for a same-day chest CT scan.

That evening, I got a call with the news that my CT scan showed something concerning and that I needed to go to the ER. I rushed over.

An ER doctor came into the room we were in and turned his computer toward me. On the screen was my CT scan.

“Have you seen this?” he asked. I told him I had not.

“Read this line,” he said.

The line said, “lytic lesions on T6 and L3; highly concerning for metastatic cancer.”

I was in shock. I knew what “metastatic” meant. It meant cancer. And it meant cancer that had spread.

My mother and husband were with me as I was being admitted to the hospital. I was hyperventilating and in tears. All I could think of were my kids and the grave possibility of them having to grow up without a mom.

Once admitted, I had a thoracentesis, a procedure to remove fluid or air from around the lungs. It was unsuccessful. I wound up with an emergency chest tube to drain fluid off my lungs. The fluid was tested and came back as cancerous. A bone biopsy revealed stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

I was so shocked you could have knocked me over with a feather. Stage 4 lung cancer? As a young woman with no history of smoking and who had not grown up in a smoking home? It was all wrong. And so unfair.

I needed a biomarker testing done to determine whether I had a driver mutation. The biomarker testing revealed that I did: EGFR exon 19 deletion, one of the most common driver mutations in NSCLC in people diagnosed with lung cancer under the age of 50.

I had another bronchoscopy. The pulmonologist who performed it saw a mass immediately and blasted the pulmonologist who’d done my first bronchoscopy, saying that this mass had been there for at least several months, possibly even a year.

The first pulmonologist had royally screwed up. The scans were performed identically, yet somehow, he missed it. Who knows what that cost me in terms of life expectancy?

Once the mutation was detected, I was put on a targeted therapy, rather than chemotherapy. That started on December 30 – about four months after the cough began.

Within a few weeks of starting my treatment, I felt better. The cough went away and it healed all my bone metastases.

But things weren’t looking great for me. My thoracic oncologist told me I had two years to live.

Again, all I could think about were my kids.

Fortunately, I responded well to the targeted therapy, which shrank my primary tumor by 70%. I underwent eight sessions of radiation to further shrink the primary tumor. My body responded favorably, and after that radiation, I was told I could possibly live another five years.

And here we are. Five years later.

Leah and family, 2024 (Photo/Jennifer Edlin Photography)

Over these past five years, I’ve connected with a lot of people who have lung cancer despite having never smoked.

Last year, Lindi, another non-smoking EGFR NSCLC patient and Bianca, a caregiver to an EGFR patient, and I got together to think about how we could help others. We get so much messaging from society and medical professionals about smoking putting you at risk for lung cancer and the importance of quitting smoking — and that is great information for those that smoke — but it leaves a lot of us out.

As many as 1 in 5 people diagnosed with lung cancer are non-smokers, and the majority of that number are women under 50.

In March 2024, the three of us launched a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization called Young Lung Cancer Initiative (YLCI). It’s gone gangbusters. We’ve taken off in ways I couldn’t imagine on social media and have been discovered by folks around the world, many of whom went through the same frustrating runarounds with clueless or dismissive doctors.

Through my work with YLCI, I’ve connected with brilliant doctors, including a surgeon who, to my delighted surprise, approved me for a middle lobectomy and primary tumor removal, something I was previously told was off limits for me. I underwent surgery six weeks ago and am still recovering, but doing well.

My most recent chest scan showed that my lungs look good! But this doesn’t mean I can go off my targeted treatment. I will always need that, along with frequent scans to check for metastases.

It’s looking like I could be here for another five to 10 years, but possibly much longer, as science continues to advance. I certainly have no plans of leaving anytime soon.

I’m hopeful and I have no regrets. I know that I went above and beyond in being my own advocate. Perhaps the only thing I would change, looking back, is to have switched PCPs as soon as I felt disrespected by mine.

But there’s nothing to be done about that now. What I can do, and what I do do, is focus on helping others who know this profound struggle all too well. I also put great emphasis on tending to my mental health (I gladly take antidepressants) and having a sense of humor about things.

We’re all in this together, you know? And together, we can make a difference not just in one another’s lives, but in the entire way we see and understand lung cancer.

This educational resource was created with support from Daiichi Sankyo and Merck.

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