Lydia Valentin, Javier Fernandez and Carolina Marin. These three names not only belong to well-known athletes from our country. The weightlifting champion, the figure skater and the badminton player have something else in common: all of them, along with many other nationally renowned athletes, shared high school, the High School Ortega y Gasset in Madrid. And it is that this “centre of champions”, with its three locations, offers its students the opportunity to train at the highest level not only in the educational field, but also in sports. They were pioneers in women’s football when they were hardly represented, together with Atlético de Madrid, and their modernization programs and the residence they offer for athletes from all over Spain have made them a reference center.
Also study here Carla Albitos, who, at 17 years old, has recently been awarded as the Spanish Judo champion in her category. “I have a bit of a special situation, because my father is my coach,” she says. In fact, judo is something that she has lived with at home practically since she was born, since it is a sport that her mother also practices. She started practicing it at the age of three, and at 12 she was already competing. “In addition to the Spanish champion award, I have also participated in international tournaments, such as the European Cup that took place in Fuengirola and in which I was seventh,” she explains. However, she admits that, being so young, combining studies with high-performance sports is not always easy. “It requires a lot of discipline,” she says, “although it is true that if there is something to practicing a sport from such a young age, it is that it helps you a lot to be constant in what you do, especially when you have little time.” She arrived at Ortega y Gasset in the 3rd year of ESO, at a time when she “felt that she had to have everything super squared, because she had very firm schedules for the gym, training, classes…”. In spite of everything, he assures that “the moment comes when you get used to it and, in the end, you end up taking advantage of the time much more, because those hours that you have left free are invested in what you really need: if it is studying, then you study, and if it is to rest, then you rest”.
Now that it’s just over 1st year of Baccalaureate, and at the gates of summer, Albitos still has a few days of training left. “I finish in June with the usual training sessions here in Madrid, and, although I will rest in the summer, I will continue training to prepare for next season,” he says. A season that will also coincide with his last year as a student at the institute and that will open the way to university. “I want to study law”, he indicates, “it is what most attracts my attention”. As for sport, he remains to see how these new stages are combined. At the moment, at Ortega y Gasset he recognizes that “it is very noticeable that the teachers are aware that most of the students have to train, so they adapt to it. They give a lot of margin, and with the teammates themselves you can also see that we understand each other”.
In the Ortega y Gasset venues, the needs of the students are taken into account at all times to combine it with sport. “The center currently has three locations, each in a different district of Madrid,” explains Apolinar Pancho, director of the center. “The headquarters is on Santa Fe street and it is not strictly sports, but it does appear as a sports center of excellence, which means, for example, that students have three hours of Physical education instead of two, as in other institutes”, he says, aware that this may change with LOMLOE. “We also have sports schools where, in the afternoons, judo, wrestling or canoeing classes are taught, for example, among others,” he adds, “and all this is complemented by more sports activities and competitions.” The entrance of student athletes in this institute was through a “slow but constant flow”, to the point that a good part of the students on Santa Fe Street are athletes, either high-performance or technical. “On the other hand, there are the Ciudad Universitaria sports headquarters and the Joaquín Blume residence”, points out the director, which is attended by high-performance athletes from all over Spain because they are federated in Madrid or in modernization programs. In fact, federations such as the men’s and women’s artistic gymnastics are attached to this center, and they will include women’s basketball, rowing, tennis, motorcycling…
“When making schedules, marking exams, asking for jobs… you have to take into account, necessarily, the training and competitive demands that sport has on these boys and girls,” says Pancho. “We try to accompany them in this process that is to attend secondary education and be athletes,” says the director. “But, for this, we also demand that they be young people committed to what they do, and that discipline learned in sports applied to studies is very noticeable,” he says. “The lives of these boys is a continuous effort, and that deserves our commitment to them and that we act accordingly.” For example, when there are national or regional competitions and they have to miss a week, they are allowed and given the facilities so that they do not lose that knowledge, for example, through virtual classes. “In no case do they have less study content, here we don’t just approve anyone,” says Pancho, “in fact we have had several 14 in the EvAU, and the results are there, and the external tests show that we have more than 95% approved in university access”. But what is certain is that “if they had this dynamic in any other center of normal use, they would have had to choose between studying or continuing in sport at that level.” For this reason, at Ortega y Gasset they are given the opportunity to reconcile these two aspects of their lives, since “they can go perfectly hand in hand if one has the will to be flexible and attend to the needs of each student”. In this sense, for Pancho, communication between the teacher and the student is essential, so that they can reach agreements and see which is the method that best suits him and the subject.
“It’s a matter of desire and organization.” He’s a math teacher himself, and he rarely finds the whole class when he takes a test, which means he’ll have to change it to take the missing ones, and that, of course, is extra work. “But it’s not impossible, you can do both,” he asserts. “When water polo is not lacking, tennis or rhythmic gymnastics are lacking,” he says. “But everything is compensated because the teachers believe in this project, and the students respond perfectly to it”. In fact, for the director of the center, the fact that so many young people have to choose between their studies or their sports skills every day is not a problem for them, but for a system that does not support them enough. “It happens a lot that our students go to the United States to go to university, because there there is a system of sports scholarships and this type of need is better attended to,” he says. “Here it is difficult for it to be like that outside of private education.”
