He may look like your average teenager. But Cebuano triathlete Justin Chiongbian is far from being average. With a mind-set that most teenagers don’t posses, Justin was able to maintain a perfect balance between his love for sports and his craving for knowledge.
The 16-year-old Philippine junior triathlon team member said his fairly hectic schedule as an athlete and a student has prompted him to divide his time equally between studying and practicing and or competing.
As a testament to this balance, Chiongbian is currently in Singapore to enroll in the Singapore Institute of Management which offers similar courses to the University of London for Business and Management, a course he will be taking come school time. After that, he is set to take part in the 2015 New Taipei ASTC Triathlon Asian Championships on June 12 in the New Taipei City, Chinese Taipei.
When asked by Cebu Daily News in a recent interview on how he divides his time, Chiongbian said he sometimes trains at night and studies by day whenever a competition is approaching.
“I just train at night. I do still manage to get decent grades,” said the former Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu star athlete.
His affair with triathlon, though, did not start smoothly as according to him, his parents at first were apprehensive of his competing in the grueling tri-event when he was still 13 years old.
He, however, managed to convince them to support him, as he grew in the sport. At present, his mom and dad are huge supporters of triathlon.
Justin’s first-ever championship title came in 2012 during the 2012 Subic Asian Triathlon Championship and the rest, as they say, is history.
Asked how often he practices in preparation for the coming National Duathlon, Justin said he practices two to three days each week for his endurance training.
“I’m currently working on my backlogs. I’m hoping this race will be a good one,” remarked Chiongbian, referring to the coming Taipei race where he’s scheduled to compete in the junior men’s elite division, a 750-meter swim, 20-kilometer bike and 5-kilometer grind.
His rivals in that race include the top junior triathletes of Malaysia, Chinese Taipei, Japan, Korea, Iran, Thailand, China, Singapore, Kazakhstan, Bahrain, Hong Kong and Uzbekistan.