If it is difficult for all students to cope with distance learning, and if it is difficult for students – athletes to combine books and training, for Alessio Sommacal in this period there is… one more obstacle.
The promising hurdler of the Athletic club Belluno Firex, in fact, has to deal with the time zone.
Yes, because Alessio has been a student of California State Polytechnic University since last August, a US university known as Cal Poly Pomona, which is based in Pomona. City in which the son of art (dad Mauro was an excellent high jumper in the seventies-eighties and is now one of the Firex technicians) never arrived. Cause Covid-19, evidently.
And since last summer he has been putting together training-study-lessons, combining them with the time zone.
“The health emergency has blocked the world and also my departure for the States”, explains Alessio, born in 2001, a biochemistry student after five years of scientific high school in Belluno. Unfortunately I have never been to Pomona, because with the beginning of the academic year, last August, the university did not open. I had to do everything online, even the pre-admission interview: And, of course, now the lessons ».
Yeah, the lessons. Which we imagine you will have to follow “live” and not recorded. With consequent upheaval of schedules.
«Yes, of course, I have to adapt to the lessons that are proposed and therefore follow them at night. Last semester they started at 5pm – Italian time – to finish at 3am. Not continuous, of course, but that is the time required. This semester ends at one o’clock. But when there is some laboratory, it goes up to five ».
Not a walk.
“Actually no, also because sometimes there are jobs to be delivered immediately at the end of the lessons and therefore it is necessary to add more time to the school, taking away from sleep”.
And how do you do with your workouts?
«As for the study, even in this the habits I had up to a year ago have inevitably changed. I can no longer train with my group, because classes start at 5pm. So, I train alone, alternating according to the shifts of dad, who now follows me together with Piero D’Incà: one week we go to the stadium in the morning, one in the afternoon. Let’s say that I am living in a period of life where flexibility is the watchword. It is not easy but I am aware that these difficulties I have to face are a life lesson, useful for the future ».
Does the time zone weigh more on studying or working on the track?
«It is undoubtedly difficult to attend classes at night and, in addition, to study to deliver the works I referred to earlier. It’s not so much the busted schedules that affect training as it is the fact that you have no one to train with. When you prepare yourself you have more difficulty in finding the stimuli ».
We are coming out of a particularly snowy and cold winter.
«In recent months training has been really tough. It happened to do training with -11 C. And also some training in the dark because, logically, for only one athlete the headlights were not turned on. We worked with only two free lanes. And without making the leaps because the platforms were covered with snow ».
Did you have any indication of when you will finally be able to leave for California?
«In the autumn there seemed to be the possibility of starting in January but then Cal Poly Pomona kept the closure. Now, there seems to be a possibility that it will open in August. Also because in the United States they are further ahead with the vaccination plan. But I prefer not to have any illusions ».
Let’s talk about races. You are in the first year of Promesse and you have arrived one step away from the final of the Italian indoor championships. What are the seasonal goals?
«The main one is to reach the final at the Italian championships of the category». –
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