Our third Feature Athlete is Dahiana Gussoni, based in the Greenwich prefect. She is a open swimming competitor from Costa Rica and she shared her experiences with the CGA Press Sports team via an interview. Please enjoy the rest of the article!

Interviewer (I): Tell us your achievements in competitive swimming.

Dahiana Gussoni (D): I earned 14th place in the 5KM swim and 10th place in the 10KM swim in the Central American and Caribbean Swimming Federation (CCCAN) 2019 Open Water Championships. I was 3rd Place Women of all ages in the 2019 Oceanman Cozumel 5KM race, and qualified in the 2019 World Final Championship Cancun 5KM swim. I was 5th place in that race. For me, a proud achievement also was swimming and completing the 10KM race, because the conditions were not favourable. I also never had swam the distance before, and was nervous.

I: Your results involve open water swimming, what makes you interested in the field?

D: I like open water because it’s a competition against yourself and your mind telling you things, and also against the conditions of the ocean.

I: How do you manage CGA learning and swimming practice, competitions?

D: Learning and sports is a good combo, because you can learn discipline. Also when you are tired with practice, you can bring focus to schoolwork and you are concentrated. The difficult part for swimming though, is that you have to be consistently training, to not lose condition. In fact competitions are actually easier to prepare, since they are usually held on weekends.

I: Do you have any messages or advice to future competitors and CGA students?

D: Swimming isn’t a fun sport, but it is a team sport and team is family, they make sessions fun. Sports make a good balance between academic and social interactions. Swimming makes you develop strengths and a balance. Though swimming isn’t a sport you see much progress, for example a 1 second improvement could take 4 years, but it shows that you are steadily growing. Good luck!

Again, thank you to Dahiana for making time to conduct this interview, despite her role as Student Leadership, school and practice. A special thanks goes to Rhea Werner for helping out massively regarding this interview.

The Sports team of the CGA Press will continue to cover experiences of athletes that you could be in the same classroom everyday. Look out for new articles released every Friday.