In this week’s column we feature rising star athlete Ruth Sanmoogan. The 19 year-old is another perfect example of finding the balance between academics and a life on the track. The former St Stanislaus Collage and Bishops’ High School Student has secured a bronze medal for her country at this South American Championships.
Sanmoogan claimed bronze with her leap of 5.59m coming in behind, Guyana’s diminutive long jumper Chantoba Bright who won Guyana’s first gold medal with a personal best jump of 6.30m.
Daniel Williams
However, Sanmoogan has a personal best of 5.69 which was achieved at this year’s Alain Pompey meet held in July at Leonora. Her love for athletics is rivalled by only by her passion for medicine.
The athlete is now a first year student at the University of Guyana. She is studying for her medical doctorate and underscored the fact that it is tough balancing both acts.
“It’s tough. The previous years lessons took over my training period so I couldn’t. But this year the times for lessons were in my favour, so I have more days to train, about 3-4 days per week,” Sanmoogan said.
“For academics, it’s to be a doctor which I’m currently studying for. For sports, I try to be realistic, so representing my country successfully more than I can count with my hands would be just fine. But now that Med School has begun sports won’t be my number one priority, (I would) basically train hard when I can”.
Like the legendary Carl Lewis, Sanmoogan, who started out six years ago, has also competed in sprint events on the track. She favours 100, 200 and 400M events also. In the 100M she has a personal best of 12.87s achieved in Trinidad and Tobago in 2014.
The Running Brave Athletics Club member declared that her mother has been a great inspiration in her life.
“I don’t believe I have one (role model). No athlete has ever inspired me to take up athletics or any doctor to study to be a doctor; those are choices I made on my own. But the closest to that would have to my mom.”
