THS swimmer participates in international competition

Submitted photo
Texarkana's Jeremiah Mathis shakes hands with a Ugandan swimmer after a competition in Belgrade, Serbia, earlier this year. Mathis was one of 11 U.S. swimmers to participate in the first U15 World School Sport Games.
Submitted photo Texarkana's Jeremiah Mathis shakes hands with a Ugandan swimmer after a competition in Belgrade, Serbia, earlier this year. Mathis was one of 11 U.S. swimmers to participate in the first U15 World School Sport Games.

BELGRADE, Serbia -- Texas High swimmer Jeremiah Mathis experienced at 15 what most amateur athletes only hope for by their 20s, if ever.

Jeremiah was selected, through the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union), to represent the United States in the first U15 World School Sport Games, hosted by the International School Sport Federation.

The ISF has held the World School Sport Games for U16-U18, but this was the first time U13-U15 was held. The World School Sport Games are held every two years with rotating host countries.

The U15 event, which was 10 days long, featured 14 sports with 2,500 participants from 36 countries.

Jeremiah is a backstroker, and he swims the 200 individual medley and 100 backstroke for the Texas High Tigersharks, as well as being a longtime member for ATAC, the local club team.

Jeremiah has been swimming competitively since he was 7. When he received the notification that he had been chosen for the U.S. National team, he was competing at the AAU Junior Olympics in Houston.

"One thing that I brought away from the experience is that I can't stop training; there's a lot of fast competition out there," he said about his experience with the World School Sport Games. "We interacted with a lot of the other nations' teams; we would use translators and it was a lot of fun to learn about them."

Jeremiah was one of 11 swimmers chosen through application and achievement process. Also on the team were kids from Florida, Boston, another from Texas and three from Hawaii.

The team met for the first time in Chicago, Ill., en route to Serbia through Vienna, Austria.

Out of Chicago, the U.S. swim team and karate team flew together, and in Vienna they were joined by the Ukraine soccer team. This gave the American kids their first experience with a team from another nation.

The kids would used translating apps on their phones to communicate with one another to keep language from being a barrier to get to know one another.

In the swimming competition, there were 10 participating countries, including Nepal, Slovakia, Mexico, India, Estonia, Belarus, the United States, United Arab Emirates, Ukraine and Uganda.

The competition pool was situated on the Danube River, and at the hotel where the U.S. team stayed, there also was the swim teams from India and United Arab Emirates.

"They were all pretty fast," Stephanie Smith, Jeremiah's mom, said. "It's similar to a mini-Olympics for 13-15-year-olds. We had some kids finish in the top 8, and as a whole, we weren't the slowest swimmers out there; that was really nice to see."

During the competition, there was a Nations Night, and all of the participants from every nation and sport had an evening of mingling and learning about others' cultures.

Jeremiah ended up receiving an Indian dress robe and bringing back memories from an opportunity he will never forget.

Submitted photo
Texarkana's Jeremiah Mathis prepares to compete from the starting block during the first U15 World School Sport Games in Belgrade, Serbia.
Submitted photo Texarkana's Jeremiah Mathis prepares to compete from the starting block during the first U15 World School Sport Games in Belgrade, Serbia.
Submitted photo
Texarkana's Jeremiah Mathis, center, hangs out with his team and other international swimmers during the first U15 World School Sport Games in Belgrade, Serbia.
Submitted photo Texarkana's Jeremiah Mathis, center, hangs out with his team and other international swimmers during the first U15 World School Sport Games in Belgrade, Serbia.

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