The Athletes Among Us

We’re all familiar with the school’s variety of teams such as volleyball or basketball, and we also are familiar with all the support these teams receive whenever they compete. Most of the competitions are important for our community, and people want to support our school. However, we are only talking about team sports, in which they cooperatively train at school. Certainly, team sports are good and teach you a variety of values. They make you feel part of something bigger, that you belong to a team that will always have your back. But what about individual sports? There are several sports in which there is only you and the clock, only you and one medal. Unfortunately, this type of sports is not very recognized at school. Lucky you, this article will explain some of them, in which many of our fellow classmates are involved.  

 

The most known individual sports that have tried to gain recognition at school are athletics. There are many girls at school who practice it, and probably no one has even noticed. In fact, there is an important competition every year for all the schools around the country called the “Supérate” games. This competition is made and sponsored by the Education Ministry to motivate younger generations to choose sports over other activities that may have bad repercussions. The “Supérate” is divided into three phases: Distrital, Regional and National. The different types of sports covered by this competition are Triathlon, Aquathlon, and Swimming.

 

In order for kids to compete, they have to be school students 7 to 17 years old, as well as part of an intensive training club. To continue onto the regionals the competitor must be in the podium (the three first places) for his or her category. Also, in other types of competition, they pass by being in the second or first place. When students qualify for this second phase, they receive incentives such as sweatsuits, shoes or t-shirts. The same mechanism is done to get to the final national phase.

 

As was mentioned earlier, there are many girls that practice this type of sports who are pretty good at them. For example, Estefania Gaviria from 10B  is a triathlete. She competed on the “Supérate” and gave us the following testimony, “Last Thursday I competed in the Aquathlon Supérate games, in which you have to run 2.5 km, swim 1km and then run another 2.5 km. There are 3 phases, the local, the regional and the national phase, in which the 2 or 3 first of every sport classify for the next stage. However, each round’s results are shown weeks after the competition. This year’s results were recently published, and I got a good one which led me to win third place in the sub 18 category.”

 

In other words, the Supérate is a competition in which the spotlight is given to the students giving them the opportunity to compete, win, and get every time better at their abilities. Sometimes, there is even an opportunity for them to win a scholarship. While many of us think those who participate in this type of events are some kind of unknown superstars, we have them right at school. So who knows, maybe next time you are strolling down the hall you could be walking past the next Olympic gold medal winner!