Last week British School Al Khubairat made World School Games history when they won the U13 tournament in Dubai.
It was incredibly tight – they beat runners-up St. Catherine’s British School by just ten points – but in getting over the line and claiming the title they became the first UAE team to ever win the event.
And the schools Director of Sport, Johnny Coombs, couldn’t be happier for everyone involved:
“It’s a superb achievement from a talented bunch of students,” he told GYS when we caught up with his victorious side earlier this week. “I am extremely proud of the whole group of students and staff who helped to coach the team.”
The students performed remarkably well across all three days, and were the only team to pick up gold medals in athletics, football and swimming events.
Coach Mike Edgar believes it’s the student’s attitudes that helped propel them to their victory.
He said: “I look back on my time with the U13 World School Games team with enormous pride.
“Training took place before school, during break times and after school and this group of BSAK students are a perfect example of endeavour helping to achieve success.
“The team spirit within the group shows outstanding resilience, with students using failure in one event to push them to success in another with the support and encouragement from team members who were not competing.”
Amongst the numerous medal winners for BSAK were Harry Doran – who won silver in the Boys Triple Jump – and Lamia Bajric – who won gold in the Girls Shot Putt and bronze in the Javelin.
GYS spoke to both to get their reaction to the result:
“I felt an immense sense of pride representing BSAK,” said Harry. “We worked really hard as a team and it paid off over the weekend.”
Lamia added: “It’s really different competing against schools from across the world and not just the Middle East.
“We began a friendly rivalry with St. Catherine’s and CIS.”
Both are looking forward to seeing BSAK attempt to defend their crown next year, although they will be in Year 8 and too old to compete – but they’ll still be cheering on their classmates.
As for this year, they’ve plenty of fond memories that they’ll cherish for a long time.
For Lamia, who was the top scorer in the girls’ football event, it was “scoring the winning goal in the girls final.”
And for Harry it was simply “the great atmosphere at the athletics competition.”
For a more in depth look at where BSAK picked up the rest of their medals, and information on how the rest of the UAE schools got on last week, be sure to check out our analysis article here.