Wednesday 6th March to Sunday 10th March
The British Schools in the Middle East Games is a huge competition and something that we regard as the pinnacle of our sporting year at TES. Alongside the ISACK leagues that we participate in at Under 13 level in Kuwait, we take this event very seriously and it is a major achievement if your child is selected for this sporting competition. This year the games were hosted at The British School, Muscat in Oman.
The BSME U13 Games includes 12 British Schools from the Middle East. At the games there were schools from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Bahrain and Oman. Some of these schools have huge numbers of children in each year group. Whereas TES have just over 70 boys and girls to choose from in year 7 and 8, some of the schools we were competing against have over 10 form entry which means they have over 400 boys and girls to choose from. Some of the schools also have exceptional sporting facilities. If any of you have seen the facilities Al Khor or St Christophers have you will know exactly what I mean (full size grass floodlit football pitches, athletics track, a sports hall 3 times the size of ours at TES). Most of these schools also have a huge amount of PE staff which obviously makes training and coaching teams much easier and more time can be dedicated to these teams.
Day 1
On day 1 the girls competed in basketball and the boys in football. The boys played very well finishing in 5th place overall after finishing 3rd in their group and winning the 5th/6th place play off against St Christophers, Bahrain. The girls performed extremely well, qualifying for the semi finals from their group and meeting rivals KES in the semi final. In the semi final they triumphed 9-5 and progressed to the final to play another familiar foe BSK. The girls produced an outstanding performance and won easily 17-6 to be crowned the U13 BSME basketball champions for 2013.
Day 2
On day 2 the eagerly awaited Athletics competition took place. The TES squad performed extremely well and a number of pupils excelled and put in outstanding performances. Donaven Lobo and Hessa Alrowayeh in particular were exceptional in the 100 and 200m events. Hessa Alrowayeh won 4 gold medals overall including the 100m, 200m, shot putt and the relay. It was a phenomenal performance from the TES squad and the team were crowned overall champions with British International School, Riyadh 2nd and Al Khor 3rd. Considering the team was picked from only 70 pupils this is a quite remarkable achievement for the school.
Day 3
On day 3 the girls competed in the girls football competition. Luck did not go their way and they finished in 10th position overall. However there were 19 0-0 draws from 32 games which showed that the competition could have been anyone’s. The boys took part in the basketball and performed superbly well. They convincingly won all of their 5 groups games. However in the semi final they came up against a brilliant BISC team from Egypt. BISC were too strong and won 14-6. It meant that TES played Al Khor in the 3rd/4th play off and in a tight affair came through to win 12-7 and finish in 3rd place.
The BSME Games was brought to a close with a gala dinner and the winning schools were presented with their trophies to take back to the schools.
It goes without saying that the TES children’s achievements are absolutely outstanding. To win not one but two BSME events at U13 age group is superb and something we should all be very proud of. In the past 3 years at the U13 BSME Games, TES have now achieved some quite fantastic results. In 2011 when the competition was held in Kuwait the boys were U13 volleyball champions and overall champions albeit amongst only 6 schools. Last year in Dubai the boys became U13 basketball champions and we had two players nominated as most valuable players of the tournament in netball and basketball against 14 other schools which also included 4 schools from Dubai. This year to be crowned U13 girls basketball and U13 athletics champions as well as 3rd place in the boys basketball is quite a remarkable achievement. TES are now fully recognised on the BSME sports front and are regarded as a very strong sporting school. We are now firmly on the map near the very top in BSME sport and hopefully we will stay this way for a long time to come.
Results
BSME U13 Girls Basketball: 1st: TES 2nd: BSK 3rd: KES
BSME U13 Boys Basketball: 1st: BSK 2nd: BISC 3rd: TES
BSME U13 Boys and Girls Athletics: 1st: TES 2nd: BISR 3rd: Al Khor
BSME U13 Boys Football: 1st: JPGS 2nd: BSK 3rd: BISC 5th: TES
BSME U13 Girls Football: 1st: DGBS 2nd: BISR 3rd: BSM 10th: TES
Mr Leaver and the BSME team