On Thursday 3 December, 38 students and staff headed off to Prague to compete other Nord Anglia schools in this years’ Senior Reginal tournament. It was a great trip for lots of different reasons as the students got to compete against fellow students from all around this region. While it is fair to say that we held our own throughout the weekend we also got to glimpse some of the quality currently on show in other schools which leaves us knowing that while we have improved, we are not ‘there’ yet!
The days were long – with each day’s tournament starting at 8am in the morning and finishing each day at 6pm. This led to 6am wake-ups which is always a bit of a shock to the system…and also led to some really dodgy hairstyles!
In basketball (which we played on the Friday) we fared well. The girl’s team finished behind a strong Madrid team, level on points with 3 other schools, finishing a creditable 3rd overall. The boys qualified for the semi-final and lost to the eventual winners (again from Madrid) who had a wealth of talent (including two international players) and played some incredible basketball. We gave it a real ’go’ and while we restricted the Madrid school to just 18 points in the game (the best defensive performance of the tournament) we never converted our offence into points.
In the volleyball (which we played on the Saturday) we were a little less fortunate and finished 5th and 6th respectively for girls and boys. It is fair to say that the finalists Champitett and Budapest in the boys, and Madrid again in the girls played the game on a different level and left us all impressed with their skill and with clear targets for the future.
Arriving back on Sunday morning at 5am we were happy to fall into bed and sleep the whole day Sunday. It was a busy four days but very much worth the trip and it was great to see sport of the highest level played in an incredibly competitive and yet friendly spirit.
I think that sport played like this is very much “chicken soup for the soul” and is the very reason why we value it so much. Winning is good, but we learn so much more sometimes when we lose!