Alumni Magazine - Summer 2008 - (Page 39) Gwen Sisto Weightlifter, Time-management Master G rowing up, Gwen Sisto never saw the appeal in playing basketball, soccer or softball — or any team sport for that matter. “Weightlifting was the first individual sport to which I was introduced and took interest,” Sisto says. “I was fascinated by the thought that I could be the absolute best at something — the strongest person in the world.” Since taking up the sport in 1995, Sisto, AE 05, has competed in more than 20 meets and medaled in a national meet each year. Representing Georgia Tech, she won three silver medals in national collegiate championships and in 2006 took home the gold in her 53-kilogram weight class. The 115-pound Sisto credits her personal trainer and husband, Ivan Rojas, a two-time Olympian, with helping her improve her technique and overall physical preparation in recent years. Rojas represented his native Bolivia in the 1988 and ’92 Olympic Games. “After having my daughter four years ago, I was barely strong enough to lift the bar,” Sisto says. “My husband started coaching me and now I am lifting three full weight classes lighter and lifting more weight.” Sisto trains one to two times per day, six days a week, for an average of about 24 hours a week spent in the gym. “There is no offseason in weightlifting. Most weightlifting Olympic champions have 500 workouts per year. We try to squeeze in workouts whenever possible,” she says. For the 25-year-old wife and mother, that’s a tight squeeze. A full-time foreign military sales contract repairs manager in GE Aviation’s performance-based logistics organization, Sisto also is pursuing her master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. And in March, she and her husband launched Botev Sports, which provides sports-performance training services and markets weightlifting equipment. The company’s product line includes shoes designed by Stefan Botev, a two-time weightlifting world champion and Olympic gold medalist the couple met on a training trip to Bulgaria. Sisto likens the collaboration to “having Michael Jordan design and oversee the manufacture of Air Jordans.” So how does Sisto juggle two jobs, graduate school and training and raise a family? Two things: “expert time management learned at Georgia Tech” and “synergizing aspects of your life whenever possible.” “Everything builds or feeds into everything else,” Sisto says. Her business supports her sports endeavors and motivates her to improve her lifting, while the skills learned in course work at MIT bleed into her jobs at GE and Botev Sports. And with her husband serving as her coach and her daughter often in the wings watching her train, “weightlifting time is family time,” she says. Sisto recently returned to her alma mater to compete for one of four spots on the 2008 Olympic weightlifting team. The trials were held at the Ferst Center for the Arts in May. Sisto did not make the cut, but she still has dreams of Olympic gold. “Every year since having my daughter my lifting has improved. Sustainable incremental improvements will bring me to my ultimate goal of Olympic glory. “At this point, anything is possible.” — LO GT Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2008 39 Photo: Stanley Leary
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