The life of any college student can get pretty hectic. But on top of the mental stress that all students have to go through, a college athlete also goes through physical stress. The physical strain of training multiple days a week on top of competitions is enough to exhaust just about anybody. That’s why it’s so incredibly rare to come across a DI athlete who is involved in multiple sports, and that’s exactly what Valentina Lorente-Garcia does. She’s a gymnast at Rutgers, and she’s also majoring in dance.
Similar to most college gymnasts, Lorente-Garcia has been doing gymnastics since she was very young. More specifically, she’s been in the gym for 15 years. That means most of her life has been spent there, which doesn’t leave much time for anything else. Because of this, she had to put some of her other passions to the side, one of which was dance. Other than some ballet classes here and there, Lorente-Garcia didn’t have much dance experience when she was growing up. Her journey as a dancer began when she arrived in New Brunswick.
“I never went to a studio because I dedicated my life to gymnastics,” said Lorente-Garcia. “So that was the only thing that I did, like ballet classes.”
Being a part of both a DI gymnastics program and…
