Mariam Kevkhishvili, 24-years-old, is originally from Georgia, the country not the state. She came to the University of Florida as a collegiate freshman to seek better education and pursue her potential in track and feild. She had a rough start. She didn’t speak English well nor did she understand the culture, but it didn’t take her long to excel in and out of the class room.
“Everything was so hard,” said Mariam. “Everything was so different for me. I was speaking English, but I had a hard time. You study from books and you come here and it’s completely different English. You have to relearn everything. People would speak to me and I couldn’t understand a word they were saying. I was so scared to say anything to anybody. I was stressing out, I felt like it was impossible.”
She is currently Florida’s all-time leader in indoor shot put competition, currently ranked No. 1 in the nation, and is a seven-time All-American and four-time NCAA champion. She holds the SEC indoor and outdoor meet record in the women’s shot put and was the 2007 Outdoor and 2009 Indoor SEC Female Athlete of the Year. This season, she is undefeated in indoor and outdoor competition.