Remember the name Joaquin Gonzalez Pinero.
He has already competed for Argentina at the Youth Olympic Games but now the 2024 Paris Olympics are firmly in the year 12 JESS swimmers’ mind.
Gonzalez Pinero has taken the next giant leap to further along his swimming career, accepting a scholarship to the University of Florida.
JESS is proud of its student’s commitment to the sport after he first began his training with Hamilton Aquatics.Then wanting to go even further he began training with South African Olympian Troy Prinsloo who knows the college life well having been part of the University of Georgia.
The same university was an option for Gonzalez Pinero before he opted to go to the Sunshine State.
“I got the scholarship offer to be part of their swim team, obviously college sport is a big thing in the States and they take it very seriously, it’s very competitive,” he said to JESS teacher Irene.
“There’s the biggest competition which is the main focus for universities which is the NCAA and that’s all the universities across the United States.”
Gonzalez Pinero has so much to remain focused on with, with both long term and short term goals in mind.
“The Olympics is definitely the goal, it’s tough to say now because I’m still pretty young compared to all the swimmers in Tokyo but I definitely have 2024 in my head and for this year there’s the world short course championships in Abu Dhabi that’ll be a great home competition,” he said.
Gonzalez Pinero’s pet event is the 200m individual medley which he swims in 2.03, four seconds off the current Olympic qualifying time.