Being a high performance athlete (HPA) is very complicated.  These athletes have to juggle many aspects of their lives including academics, their social lives and their sport, which is the priority for many HPAs.

It is hard for students to have both their academic life and their social life due to a lot of training and travel to tournaments. HPA’s need to balance their lives between three areas: academic life, sports life and social life.

TCS 8th grader Amalia Gallego is a competitive wakeboarder and has been training for three years. She is considered a high performance athlete because she has represented Colombia in both international and national tournaments. As a high performance athlete, TCS 11th grader Pablo Florez trains for two to six hours a day and competes in at least two tournaments every month. This is how these two Columbus School students manage the demands of being a HPA.

Academic Life at TCS

For HPA students academic life can be hard, especially in high school when there is the option to take AP classes. Florez has a very tight schedule, he is taking two AP classes, physics and calculus which are both very time consuming.

Many HPA students from The Columbus School miss a lot of class time because they have tournaments and training and have to spend their time to makeup missed work.

“I do miss a lot of school when I have a tournament because they are on the weeks,” Amalia Gallego, 8th grade student, said.

Sometimes the students need to take coursework home so they can keep up. Teachers are aware of when students will be missing and excuse them so they recieve extra time to complete their assignments.

“I try to finish my work first and then go to practice,” Gallego said.

“Usually I try to do everything related to school in school so I don’t take too much homework,” Florez,  said.

Most teachers also give extensions for important things such as exams or projects, allowing HPA’s to complete the work early or after they return from a competition. 

“I have to do work from school before the tournament so I don’t miss anything,”Gallego said.

Sports Life

HPAs are very committed to their sport and they sacrifice their social life for training and tournaments. Sometimes they do not  go out on Fridays or Saturdays due to their dedication in order to succeed.

“When I go training I never miss school because it’s in the afternoons but if it’s an important tournament I will miss school,” Florez said.

For HPAs, their sport life comes first, academic life second and their social life last. For them their sport is everything and they are willing to sacrifice even their social life to succeed.

Florez trains five to six days a week from two to six hours a day with his team in Sabaneta.  Gallego trains on Wednesdays because it is a short day at TCS so she has more time. She also trains on Saturdays and Sundays from four to six hours.

Social Life

Maintaining social relationships is not easy for these athletes, but even if they are tired they try to go out with their friends and have a chance to have some fun.  HPA students  sometimes need to miss weekend activities with their friends but try to have a normal life by socializing whenever they can. Florez enjoys playing with his play station, sleeping and watch netflix.

“For my social life, I make time to go out,” Florez said.

In her free time, Gallego likes to go out with her friends, spend time with her family to maintain a balance between sports, academics and a social life.

“I try to keep up with my social life by going out regularly,” Gallego said.

It is hard for athletes like this to have a social life because they have tournaments once or twice a month and training requires a lot of time, especially during the weekends. Each time they have a chance to go out they will take it because they normally have to train until late or have tournaments on the weekends.

For Florez and Gallego, the sport always comes first.