CESJDS’ first sports team, the basketball team, was established in 1974. Since then, the school has had an active and ever-expanding athletics program, and now offers sports like swimming and golf. Some students, however, take part in sports not offered by the school.

Physical Education teacher Brian Westerman said that although he thinks that JDS has a substantial athletics program, he knows that there are students who would like to participate in sports that JDS does not offer. Westerman has heard of students participating in many sports outside of school, such as horseback riding, rock climbing, gymnastics and ice skating.

Seventh-grader Talia Lloyd is one such student who participates in a sport not offered by the school: weightlifting.

Lloyd began weightlifting four years ago when her father enrolled her in a CrossFit Kids class. Lloyd excelled at Olympic weightlifting, an exercise that consists of two separate forms of weightlifting. The first is the snatch, a technique in which weightlifters lift a barbell in one continuous motion. The second is the clean and jerk, a technique in which lifters first raise the barbell to their chest before extending their arms and lifting it above their head.

Lloyd’s coach noticed that she was good at these lifts and suggested that they attend a meet at which Lloyd and her father would lift together.

“I had a lot of fun at the competition and I was like, ‘I think I want to do this’ and it kind of took off from there,” Lloyd said.

While competing, Lloyd said that she “felt a rush of energy” and realized that this was something she wanted to continue doing.

Last year, Lloyd decided to switch coaches. After unsuccessfully trying to find a local coach, Lloyd’s father expanded the search internationally, and Lloyd eventually found new coaches in Russia. With her new coaches, Lloyd now practices five times a week. On two days out of the five, Lloyd video calls with her coaches, and on the other days she does solo workouts in a gym in her basement.

Lloyd participated in the USA Weightlifting 2015 National Youth Championships, where she won a silver medal. Lloyd has also participated in competitions in Minnesota, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. She is competing in this year’s National Youth Championships in Texas, and hopes to continue with her weightlifting competitions and someday compete in the Olympics.

“[The Olympics are] a dream,” Lloyd said. “It’s not so much a goal right now because my goal is Nationals, but when I’m older I want to get to the Olympics.”

In order to achieve this dream, Lloyd has to balance schoolwork with her workout schedule. Lloyd plans ahead to make sure that she has time to complete all of her assignments, and also currently takes two semesters of study hall.

Like Lloyd, junior Elizabeth Warrick participates in a sport that JDS does not offer. Warrick has been fencing since the summer before fourth grade when she attended the Creative Summer at Holton-Arms School.

Warrick saw that the camp was offering fencing for the first time and decided that she wanted to try it out since it seemed like a unique approach to exercise. Fencing provides her with both mental exercise along with a physical workout.

“It’s called human chess for a reason. Because it is, in some ways, really like chess, and that’s part of what I enjoy about it,” Warrick said. “It’s not just involving your body, it’s also involving your mind, which is what keeps me interested in it.”

Although she did not continue fencing immediately after completing her summer camp, Warrick has been fencing locally at the Rockville Fencing Academy for the past seven years.

“I had maybe a year or so where I didn’t do fencing outside of camp because it was hard to find a place or a time that would work, but then I finally did and I continued because it was something that I really enjoyed, that I felt better doing,” Warrick said.

While Lloyd participates competitively in her out-of-school sport, Warrick does not. Because of this, Warrick has never had to miss school in order to participate in her sport, but she has had to make decisions regarding her participation in JDS extracurriculars. For example, she chose to be in the school musical over going to fencing.

Similar to Lloyd’s aspirations of continuing to compete in weightlifting events, Warrick hopes that in the future she will be able to fence competitively. Although Warrick has recently been unable to go to her group fencing lessons because she needs to prepare for the ACT, she hopes to go back to fencing after her testing is complete.

“I hope to one day compete because right now I just do it recreationally, but I have some of the material [for competing],” Warrick said. “I have an electric foil, I have the lamé [a piece of fencing gear]. I haven’t yet had the chance to, so I really hope to fence competitively once in my life.”