Penelope Artemis '24 Recruiting Profile

I am and always have been a person who strives for the best, no matter what I’m doing or how important it is, I always try to perform to the greatest of my abilities. "I always want to give more than I gave yesterday," Allyson Felix’s  words resonate with me deeply since they, in a nutshell, represent my mentality whenever I’m competing or performing. They also remind me how there is always room for improvement which motivates me to work harder each day.

Over the years, I have developed a wide variety of interests, sports being a very big part of these. From track and field, artistic gymnastics (3 years), figure skating (6 years, national team), volleyball, basketball, dance, theatre, volunteer work, orienteering, leadership, reading and writing, I can safely say I have developed a significant amount of confidence, experience, and, most importantly, enthusiasm. In addition to all this, my supportive peers, coaches and family have helped me in many different ways to come out of my shell and accomplish as much as I can. Personally, I love setting goals; I would even go as far as saying that the goals I set are the main fuel that drives me to strive for the best. I have and will continue to set a lot of goals in my life, but the idea of studying in the United States utterly defines my goals for the future. Through personal research, conversations with my parents who are both USA alumni, with friends and athletes living in the USA, the biggest dream of my adolescent life came to be to study in this great land of opportunities!

Even though I have a passion for multiple sports, track and field has definitely been my main focus for the past four years and will be in the future. I started off my first two years in the sport doing the heptathlon showing a particular interest in the throws, specifically shot put. Since there are no official age divisions in Cyprus for the heptathlon due to the lack of participants, I found myself at the age of 13 and 14 competing against young adults. As a girl just entering my teens, it was definitely demanding, but competing against these women helped my maturity grow because even though we were competing against each other, they showed impeccable sportsmanship and gave me some amazing advice as well as insight which I still think about to this day. I achieved a total of 1818 points when I was 13 years old in my first year and 2141 points when I was 14 years old in my second year competing.

In my third year of training, my coach advised me that it would be a lot more effective and beneficial if I switched to shot put because I showed the most progress there and have the appropriate body type so, it is now my prime sport. I have always had an undying, permanent love for shot put and along the journey I have I have competed in various competitions, including nationals and one international competition against Greece. Furthermore, I have gathered several awards throughout my journey including 2^nd place in the U16 National Championship in 2020 for shot put, 2^nd place in the U16 Regional Championship 2020 for shot put, 5^th place at the U16 Regional Championship 2019 for shot put with the 5^th best performance in the country, 3 school records for shot put and the Overall Student Sports Achievement and Participation award for my school two years in a row. When I compete, I compete against myself because my main focus is applying  the corrections of my coach and doing the very best so I can to break my own personal records. With the work ethic and motivation I possess, I am dedicated to improving myself in order to keep performing and exceeding at this level.

Moreover, as a student-athlete in secondary school, I am dedicated to sports as well as academics. Finding a balance between school and sport is a challenge that every student-athlete needs to face, and I am very lucky to go to a school that helps student-athletes such as myself keep their grades up by providing various class boosters after school and easy contact with teachers. I was in the math booster as well as the biology booster in order to maintain my average grades at the levels I wanted them to be. In addition to these boosters, I am also taking a demanding double course for English that incorporates both language and literature. My love for reading and writing drives me to take this challenging course. Among my other hobbies, reading and writing are definitely some of my favorites! Even though I don’t get so much free time to read because of athletics and school, I always find myself writing, whether it’s a poem or a word I like or even an article about something that interests me. Poetry is my calling though and this was made clear when I won my school’s poetry competition in 2019. I have also contributed to the school newspaper by writing and submitting some of my original poems. It is also my second year as a member of my school’s volleyball team (middle blocker), but unfortunately, we didn’t compete due to Covid-19 restrictions in 2020 and 2021. Also, I am an active member in my school's sports community through my commitment to the position of Vice Sports Captain of my house team. In the future, I hope to be elected house captain and eventually Head Girl of my school because I am a natural leader. I love listening to other people’s ideas as well as being a model student-athlete they can look up to.

 In addition to sports, the performing arts hold a very special place in my heart, particularly acting and dancing. I have been told countless times by my teachers and peers that I am a born performer and that my ineffable love for the stage shines through when I perform. I don’t have as much acting experience yet since I only joined my school’s drama club last year and unfortunately, the production was cancelled due to Covid-19, but I have been dancing ever since I could remember. I began with ballet when I was around seven years old and passed my Grade 1 examination, with merit, from the Royal Academy of Dance at age nine. At the same time, I competed in figure skating and won medals in several national competitions as well as competing in international competitions in Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic. As an energetic, bubbly person though, I wanted to try something that brought me a little more excitement so at around age 10 I started artistic gymnastics as well as hip-hop. I didn’t compete in gymnastics, but I progressed picking up skills easily which led to my flexibility and strength. Furthermore, I danced in several productions with my hip-hop team and had a natural flow when I danced. Simultaneously, I did contemporary dancing to improve my technique and gain experience.

Furthermore, I believe it is every person’s duty to contribute a little bit to the society they live in because kindness is an essential part of what makes up a person, so I volunteered as a teacher assistant at a kindergarten called “Kindergarten IRSA” in the summer because I love working and taking care of toddlers since it brings me so much joy to see them happy. Helping shape these incredible children is such a fulfilling task. Additionally, I have taken part in the Duke of Edinburgh (DOE) program and it has allowed me to coach the junior volleyball team as well as volunteer at a dog shelter. The DOE program’s biggest component though was backpacking and camping overnight with my team. During the trip, no phones were allowed, just a map and a compass, so finding our way back to camp was a group effort and by working together, my team and I gained a lot of team skills, and being the team leader, I gained leadership skills.

To conclude, all of these experiences and achievements have aided me to evolve into the person I am today and with more journeys to come, I am positive I will continue to evolve. My vast spectrum of interests plays a significant role in my life today and have helped me choose my dream career of child psychology which stems from my fondness of children since I believe young minds are remarkable; cultivating and exploring their minds is something I’m passionate about!