DRIPPING SPRINGS — Dripping Springs High School freshman Lexi Landrum traveled to Zlatibor, Serbia, April 3-13 for the 2025 International School Sport Federation Gymnasiade to compete in swimming.
Landrum began her journey in swimming when she moved to Dripping Springs, where she joined a local summer league called Tiger Splash. Now, she swims for both the Dripping Springs High School varsity swim team and also at Nitro Swimming in Kyle.
“My favorite thing about swimming, the sport in general, [is] I really like how you could do it your whole life and it gets you in really good shape,” said Landrum. “Personally, my experience of swimming is really the people that have made my experience what it is. I’ve made so many friends and just being able to have teammates [and being] friends outside of the pool, but also really competitive inside the pool, that’s really big in my eyes.”
According to Dripping Springs ISD, the Gymnasiade, also known as the World School Sport Games, is the “largest international sporting competition outside of the Olympics and brings together over 3,500 young athletes from over 50 countries.” Landrum submitted her swim times and was selected for the team March 1. She was joined by 16 other athletes from across the United States to represent their country in the 2025 Gymnasiade.
The swimming portion of the competition was held April 7-11. Landrum competed in the 100m, 200m and 800m freestyle events, as well as the 100m and 200m backstroke and 50m butterfly stroke. She was also on teams for the 200m relays.
While Landrum was the only one from her home team to go to the Gymnasiade, she was able to quickly bond with her teammates from the USA.
“It was a lot of fun because you just get to know your teammates and I learned a lot about nutrition and dynamic warm ups and just making sure you’re performing your best because it’s a very different environment than here,” Landrum said. “So, you had to make sure, because of the elevation, you had to make sure you were hydrating a lot and eating well and just really taking care of yourself.”
Because of the diversity of athletes at the event, Landrum explained, it took a little while to get used to the language barrier.
“Everything on the sheets, where they post all your results and stuff, all the strokes are in another language,” said Landrum. “But I really liked it, just being able to see all the other countries, because there was a lot of countries, like 40-50 at the swimming [portion of the event]. It was really cool because there’s just so many languages and many cultures; it was really cool getting to experience all that.”
“I think the biggest thing for me was one, the food. The food was very different than it is here in America,” Landrum said. “So, that took some getting used to and the temperature. It snowed for two days when we were there.”
Landrum would encourage others to compete internationally, if given the opportunity.
“I really, really, highly recommend it,” Landrum said. “It was such an amazing experience. But I think the biggest thing, like advice, I would say just soak it in because … when you’re there, it went really fast and I had a great time, but I would have just kind of soaked it in a little more and just been more in the moment, but performance wise, definitely fueling your body.”
In the future, Landrum plans to keep swimming through high school and even through college.
“[Going to the event] really means a lot to me. I’m really very, very thankful for the opportunity to go on this trip and meet so many people and compete with my teammates because I was swimming with some really, really amazing swimmers on my team from the USA and it really meant a lot to be able to represent my country,” Landrum concluded. “It leaves an impression, I feel really honored to be able to participate.”
For more information about the International School Sport Federation Gymnasiade, visit www.isfsports.org.
