UNG alumna Addyson Albershardt was a leader during her collegiate experience and was rewarded.
Addyson Albershardt knows from experience if you fall off of your bike, you have to get right back on.
The former cadet is a professional cyclist who trained while finishing her degree in kinesiology at the University of North Georgia (UNG). She graduated in May 2018 and commissioned into the U.S. Army.
"One of the biggest things is crashing," she said. "And when I was a student at UNG, there were often days when I felt like 'Man, I've fallen off my bike,' but I have to keep moving and the best thing to do is get back on the bike."
So, Albershardt will continue to get back on her bike for a chance to compete for Olympic gold in the future.
"It's been my dream to go to the Olympics since I was 6 years old,” she said.
The Matthews, North Carolina, native is well on her way. She became a professional cyclist at 15 and achieved success on the international circuit.
Now the UNG graduate hopes the U.S. Army will help her attain her ultimate goal.
"The Army has a world-class athlete program that I'm interested in pursuing," Albershardt said. "It would definitely be an amazing dream to be a part of that program and compete in the Olympics."
Pedaling her bike, the fastest she can on a worldwide athletic stage is not her sole goal, though. She is devoted to earning the gold bars of an Army lieutenant. To accomplish that, she trained as a member of the National Guard and Corps of Cadets on UNG’s Dahlonega Campus while soaring high above average academic standards.
The Army is already seeing dividends from its investment in training Albershardt. In April 2018, she led a UNG Ranger Challenge team, which placed fourth among 64 teams across the nation. Albershardt was the only female leader in the competition.
She was also named an honor graduate out of about 30 mostly male cadets from across the U.S. in the Mountain Warfare School in the Republic of Georgia in summer 2016.
Albershardt said the school entails rappelling, rock climbing and ruck marching.
"(It's) all of these great things that I love to do," she said. "I think people saw things in me that I didn't see in myself," she said. "I have self-confidence, but when I'm stacked up against the guys, it's just human nature to think they are better than me."
Albershardt, however, actually did something to combat that thought. She created the Female Mentorship Program for UNG's Corps of Cadets.
She explained it started as a sociology project to find an element to improve.
"I looked at all the statistics from the corps specialty units from the last 20 years, and I found below 1 percent female involvement," she said, noting her program had 30 members in its first year.
