HUMANS OF AISTS
MAS2021 | Ep13 | Flavio Squillante
Defining a specific moment when I got passionate about sports is one of the most challenging questions I’ve ever been asked! Although I have always had a preference for football, my parents urged me to try all sports before choosing one. This approach proved to be useful even outside sports boundaries and brought me here to Lausanne and AISTS.
Unlike many of my classmates, I cannot consider myself a former professional athlete. Nevertheless, I have gained other academic and professional experiences that are applicable to the world of sports, especially during the transition towards the professionalization of several sporting disciplines.
Despite having travelled across Europe for studies and work, I always felt inspired by Switzerland, its sporting culture and its outdoor-devoted lifestyle. The desire for a career change, the passion for sports and the willingness to experience life in Switzerland came together last year when I decided to enrol in the Sports Management program at AISTS to fulfil my desire to turn my passion into a career. I was fortunate enough to experience in person the Turin 2006 Olympic Games, and this year’s journey inside the Olympic Movement reinvigorated the “passion lives here” motto that characterized those two weeks in my hometown. Going back to class, living abroad, and approaching a new international community are definitely complex concepts to associate in the midst of the pandemic we experienced in 2020. Meeting people without shaking hands and discussing vaccines more than sports events has been challenging to say the least. For all these reasons, I am proud of everything we have achieved – as a class and community – and feel confident that the values of the sport we learned and embraced will make us ready for the next challenge. ‘Ad maiora semper.’
*Credits for the Humans of AISTS go to MAS 2021 Aditya Narayan and Gabor Zippenfenig for coordination and photography!
