Every year, THS students meet to compete in a class-versus-class competition called the Olympics. It is a Tenafly High School tradition that involves both academic and athletic events. There are numerous events throughout the day that all count for points, which later determine the winner of the Olympics, one of the most hectic but fun days of the entire school year. It is a day full of school spirit and friendly competition. However, few really know about the months of preparation behind it.

Preparation for the Olympics actually begins months before the event which takes place on the first Friday of March. Ms. Barker, the advisor of the Olympics committee, says that Olympics meetings can be held even as early as November. “In the fall, the Olympics committee looks at the rulebook to see if we can come up with any new games and create rules for the games.” Barker said. The Olympics committee is a group of students who dedicate their time and effort to helping plan for the Olympics. The day before the Olympics, the Olympics committee stays after school to set up for the event in the gym. In preparation for Olympics day, the Olympics committee is in charge of making sure everything runs smoothly. Ms. Barker says, “The day of, it’s just [about] making everything happen. We’re running things in and out of the Pitt, keeping score, cleaning up as we go, and making sure everything gets back to the closet for next year.” Working alongside Ms. Barker is Ms. Zanoria. Ms. Zanoria helped out with the roster program anytime anything was wrong. “My role was to organize all the roster data, which impacted the roster, judges, and events” Zanoria said. Not only that, but on Olympics day, she also kept running the scores for all the different grades. Without the Olympics committee and the help of Ms. Barker, Ms. Haggerty, and Ms. Zanoria, the Olympics would not be able to run as smoothly as it did this year. 

In addition to the Olympics committee, are the class officers are a big part of setting up Olympics for their class. The class officers met almost every day during lunch leading up to the week of the Olympics to work together on the roster sheet for every event. Senior class president Jacqueline Kim (‘23) says “For the Olympics, the main job of the class officers is to organize the pre-events, main day events, and to build up overall spirit and excitement among the student body.” Kim explains the job of the class officers and how they work to set up for the Olympics. “On the day of the Olympics, the class officers work to make sure that all participating students attend their events, and if a substitution needs to be made, we are in charge of running them by the Olympics Committee in the Pitt in order to officiate them.” Kim also adds “Overall, the senior class officers and I focused on trying to make sure that everyone in our grade had a good time, especially because this was our last Olympics. And even though the seniors placed last, I am really proud of how our grade came together to do its best and have fun.” Junior class president Grace Chung (‘24), along with her team, led her class in winning the Olympics this year. Of course, the journey to victory was not easy. “Olympics is always a busy time for officers and this year was of course no different. The officers and I really spent a lot of time making sure that each event our friends were put in were events that they wanted to spend their breakout time in” Chung said. Chung describes how difficult it is to form the perfect roster as there are many students who don’t want to participate in certain events. “We really just tried to make Olympics as fun as possible for our class and it looks like it worked!”

Along with the class officers are each class’ Olympic coordinators. All of these jobs could not be done as efficiently without the help of the Olympics coordinators. Each class gets to choose two Olympics coordinators to help out with organizing each class for Olympics. This year, Lucia Martinez-Pelaez (‘25), was one of the two coordinators for the sophomore class. She was a huge help this year along with last year. “We create the roster, and organize other parts of Olympics like the commercial and class song.” She and our class’ other coordinator, Tony Yoo (‘25), made sure all the students were on top of their events and “In general just helped the class officers.” 

The months of preparation for the Olympics should not go unnoticed. The Olympics is one of the most exciting days that many students look forward to each year. It is all thanks to the wonderful team that we had another safe and successful Olympics.