The competition was a university championship organized by Universidad Técnica del Norte in Ibarra.

A delegation of 6 students, composed of Alisson Iles, Cristian López Francisco León, Nataly Milan, Nataly Villarruel and Victor Torres, represented Yachay Tech at a university swimming competition that took place at the Universidad Técnica del Norte (UTN) campus. The sports event happened on Saturday, February 25, 2018 and gathered 13 sports delegations from universities around the country. During the event, Yachay Tech’s sports delegation won 14 medals of which 4 were gold, 7 silver and 3 bronze. The competition started at 8:00 am and combined backstroke, breaststroke, combined and relays styles for 50 and 100 meters.

For Diego Méndez, in charge of the university’s sports department, these acknowledgments are a motivation not only for students in the swimming team, but all students that practice sports in the institution as well. He points out that even though they naturally come to university for their academic development, Yachay Tech has students who are very talented at sports and who can give the University important recognitions in this area. The swimming team is a great example of this.

Due to a lack of infrastructure, students have to practice on Saturdays in the UTN swimming pool. They make great efforts not to miss any training sessions, given that training only once a week is not ideal. On top of that, since swimming is not a supported sport, all six students have to seek their own ways of entering university competitions, which demands an extra effort. Diego concludes that this achievement is not only a reason to make the sports department proud, but a reason to make the whole University proud, because it highlights the institution’s name. We congratulate the students on their performance and hope to see their participation in future university encounters.