World Championships triple medalist and world record holder Mireia Belmonte has been busy speaking to groups of on the subjects of the importance of academics in an athletes life and inclusion in sport.
Murcia.com reports that Belmonte was joined by fellow successful Spanish athletes; Berni Rodriguez, Jorge Garbajosa and Sergio Lopez-Andujar, on a panel to discuss how athletes can pursue their goals in sport while achieving success in the classroom, which will allow them to be successful after their athletic careers are over.
When asked about how her training schedule can work in conjunction with her academic pursuits she explained that it was tough, but that it was worth doing. She stressed that she wanted to be ready for life after swimming, which is why she is pursuing a degree in advertising and public relations at the same time as training for her high performance goals on the international stage.
As part of the fourth annual “Inclusive Sport Week” which is held in Madrid from September 30th-October 2nd Belmonte joined Paralympic swimmer Teresa Perales to discuss inclusion in sport. Both swimmers stressed in their talk that the pursuits of the able bodied swimmer and paralympian have no distinct differences, “There is not much difference in the physical preparation. All have the same desire to fight, to fight for a goal. The common goal is to always give the maximum to get the best result,” said Belmonte, as reported in lasprovincias.es.
Both athletes also stressed that there needs to be more funding to help promote inclusivity in sport so that more athletes can gain the valuable experience that athletics offers young people to learn behaviours that will ultimately help them to be successful outside of the pool.
On top of the talks that Belmonte was involved in she also shared her insights on her life in the pool with both vitonica.com and comunidad.laopinion.es.
In an article on vitonica.com Belmonte shared several motivational phrases that she has used to keep a positive mindset while in training and at competitions. Some of these phrases include:
- Your chances of success increase every time you try
- To achieve what you never had you must do what you’ve never done
- The elevator to success is out of service , you have to climb the stairs slowly
The full list of phrases can be found here
On comunidad.laopinion.es Belmonte answered several questions from her fans across the globe.
She commenting on surpassing her goals for the World Championships, which was to improve from her performance in 2011 of a fourth place finish, “I think that the objective is more than fulfilled,” said Belmonte. “I am more than satisfied.”
Belmonte also commented that her most memorable moment of the summer was the crowd reaction in Barcelona, “”On my moments… to remember, now in Barcelona when the entire pool, the Sant Jordi chanted my name. It was a very nice moment.”
The full interview can be found here.