CAMAGÜEY.- While the results of the 27th Ibero-American Chemistry Olympiad online 2023 were announced, she felt that perhaps she would not win a medal. Finally, they say her name, and, she says, apparently the person reading the document lost the letters. A short pause until she said her last name, so that Lianet Leonard García could leave her nerves aside and feel happy.
“It was an easy test and I had some mistakes; I was very anxious and at that moment I thought I could be left without a medal,” Lianet says that she, along with her partner Daniela de la Caridad Piñero Díaz, from the IPVCE Máximo Gómez Báez, obtained Bronze in the competition.
“Lía” often gets the better of her nerves, she is one of the first to hand in an evaluative assignment at school and she always has a question to ask during a class session. She helps her classmates, explains to them what they need to know about Chemistry or any subject and she worries about everything.
Since she entered the IPVCE Training Center in ninth grade, she saw achieving a result in an international event as unattainable. She highlights that an important part of this award is owed to her coaches; her teacher Julio in Camagüey, the teachers of the pre-selection, and Dahysmer and Cesar, who recently also obtained medals internationally.
-How was your relationship with the other students on the team?
-I already knew Daniela because we studied at the same school. At first I saw the other boys as simple companions; then we did the study guides that we had to solve together. We helped each other, if I didn't understand something they explained it to me and vice versa. I really admire them a lot, they are very talented.
-How does it feel to get a medal in an international event?
-For me it was always a dream to be part of the Seat of Honor that is in the school where the photos of the international medalists are placed, but I never thought it was possible. Appearing for the Ibero was difficult, there were whole nights of studying, preparing to win the selective exams and thus be part of the team. Right now I am happy and grateful to myself and everyone who has been part of this process.
-How much support have you received from your family?
-They have helped me a lot morally and financially and have been willing to accompany me and take me to all the places where they believed my preparation would be better. After the event, my mother went to pick me up in Havana with my sister to return to our province. Being a contestant is not easy and she is always there for whatever she needs.
-Why a Chemistry contestant?
-When I was in seventh grade I saw a Passage to the Unknown that I thought was interesting and I wanted to investigate the topic; the most related subjects were Biology and Chemistry; And in ninth grade I decided to enter the IPVCE competition classroom for this subject.”
She would choose to be a contestant again, thanks to this she recognizes that she has found answers to many questions and has acquired a new focus on what she would like to do in the future.
She is no longer as scared as before to go study somewhere else, far from her family. She knows that the first days are always difficult, but that “her family” will always be there; that is why she is determined to study Pure Chemistry. In a week she will join her twelfth grade and she will be closer to another dream, which will surely come true.
Perhaps interviewing Lianet would have been more difficult, if we had not met as a student-teacher a year ago, perhaps she would not feel so proud of this achievement; but she is so kind that she can steal the heart of any teacher, friend, journalist.
Lianet still does not realize how talented she is and she prefers to tell the things she still needs to know and learn. That's where her success lies, in living in that constant desire to know herself better, in trying to be better every day.
Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez