We are incredibly proud to celebrate Columbia International College’s first alumni Olympian! Lidwine Uwase, CIC ’17, is representing Rwanda in the Freestyle 50m swimming at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games on August 3rd!
While involved in intense training in Paris, Lidwine sent her warm hugs and thanks to the CIC community where she spent four years as a student. She hopes to inspire the next generation of Olympians, NBA players, football champions, and everything in between.
Lidwine:
My Journey at CIC: Cherished Memories and Lifelong Lessons
My most memorable moments at CIC were all the extracurricular activities that I participated in. Though the academic part was great, I always enjoyed the team building activities, drama performances (as much as it was academic), art, cheerleading, and mostly getting to know people from all walks of the world. The most memorable people were my teachers. Mrs. Simpson, Mr. Susin, Mr. Ferreira, Mrs. Ward, Ms. Lue and her brother John, my cheerleading coach Kat and so many others… In my last year, I probably spent more time in the gym than in class. I spent countless times bugging Mrs. Simpson about what I needed to do to get stronger or debating with Mr. Susin about how we can make the world a better place! As crazy as my dream sounded to everyone, no one ever made me feel like I couldn’t reach it. At the time, I probably didn’t believe it either, but I always say dreaming is free, so why not give it a shot?From CN Tower Climbs to Cheerleading: How Extracurriculars Shaped Me
I’ve always been competitive, maybe it’s from being the last born or just always wanting to do better. Funny enough I did the CN tower Climb just because I wanted to keep on my siblings’ legacy who had done it before, with little training, I’d like to believe I crushed it even though I couldn’t walk for a week after that, HaHa. Cheerleading taught me the importance of teamwork, made me a better leader, and above all the importance of stretching. I’m grateful now for that experience given that I’m always sore. To me at the time, they all seemed like fun activities to participate in, little did I know they were shaping the girl that’s typing this right now.Chasing Dreams: The Unseen Hard Work behind Success
DREAM, DREAM and DREAM AGAIN. Nothing is unattainable. It will be hard, it will be painful, you might hate it at times, you will want to quit, you might even quit at some point. But if you truly want it, GO GET IT!!! Don’t let anyone tell you that your dream is too big or impossible. Above all, get a support system. Being an athlete isn’t always about the glory, it’s more hard work than most ever get to see, I train 6 hours a day to race less than 30 seconds. I lost a lot of friends who had similar goals because when they got tired and quit, no one was there to tell them to get back up. It’s okay to fall, just always remember the DREAM and get back to work.
