Personal Statement
My name is Juan Sebastian ("Juanse") Garcia Castillo. I am from Colombia. But I am currently living in Almaty, Kazakhstan. I am graduating this upcoming summer at Almaty International School. I have a current GPA of 3.7 and I am fluent in Spanish, English, French, and I am currently working on my Russian.
Running is my passion. I have been running both cross country and track and field here in Almaty for the past four years. I have been fortunate enough to have competed in CAXC (Central Asia Cross Country Classic), a group of International Schools in Central Asia that come together to host sporting events for their students, and also have competed in CEESA (Central and Eastern Europe Schools Association) meets for the past four years. We have won as a team 4 CAXC championships and 2 CEESA championships in the past four years. I also have running experience from running camps over the summer. I have travelled to the United States during my summers and attended the Nike Running Camp in Rock Hill, New York in 2016 and then Warrior running camp in Florida in the summer of 2017, 2018, and 2019.
Individually, I have won both cross country and track and field races in the countries of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Bulgaria. I have individually won CAXC the last 4 years in a row and 6 CEESA cross country championships. Also, I have competed in the Almaty Marathon 10k race the last 2 years in a row, getting 3rd place in 2018 and 1st place in 2019 in the U18 category with a time of 34:48. Also earlier this year, in October, I competed in the Almaty Half Marathon 10k and got a 2nd place finish in the 15-35 years category with a time of 32:20.
My dream is to study kinesiology and run in college. I believe that I might be a good fit for a team as an international third culture kid. I've got experience from racing internationally and could bring diversity into the team.
