Diogo Abreu, a student of Electrical and Computer Engineering, will participate in the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, which begin this Friday, representing Portugal.

This is the first participation of Diogo Abreu, a 22-year-old trampoline gymnast, in the Olympics.

The athlete began practicing this sport at the age of 9, influenced by his mother, Margarida Abreu, and started on the double mini-trampoline, at Sporting Clube de Portugal. At the age of 16, he definitively switched to trampoline, and it was there that he achieved the most significant results of his career (this year, he reached 14th place in the European Trampoline Championships, and was in the 4th position in the qualifying test event for the Olympic Games (OJ), which took place in Rio de Janeiro).

In an interview to the newspaper i, the gymnast guarantees that it is possible to combine gymnastics and Electrical Engineering. “I was always a very good student and I knew that what I wanted to be was an electrical engineer. I'm aware that on trampolines, for example at this year's World Championship, if the twenty seconds didn't go well, I wouldn't go to the Olympic Games. I thought it would be important to have a plan B. I think it is possible to reconcile the two, it has always been possible. I had to sacrifice a lot of time but I don't regret it. I have been quite happy.”