Dubai: The Dubai English Speaking School (DESS) won the British Schools of the Middle East (BSME) Games, held recently in Qatar through a spectacular performance.
Twenty-eight players, who were selected for the competition, returned with flying colours, winning top position in athletics, swimming and netball and finishing third in football and seventh in basketball to emerge as the overall champions.
"The squad which we took to Qatar had put in over a 120 hours of training. We owe our success to our comprehensive after- school activity programme covering a wide range of sports for all age groups," said Chris Rowe, the head of sports at the DESS.
BSME Games is being held for the last five years in different countries. DESS competed against top 12 schools from Bahrain, Doha, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Oman.
DESS broke records in athletics as well as swimming. In athletics, Ed Lewis won the 60m, 75m and broke the BSME record in the high jump event. Natasha Lopez and Sol Spielmann sparkled in individual and relay events.
The swimming team finished first in 12 categories including six relays. DESS shattered 11 swimming records.
Kira Mukherji, a Grade 5 student, broke the record in 25m and 50m, while Lydia Rzeplinska sunk the girls' 25m record in 15.26 seconds and also the 50m, 100m freestyle and 4x25m freestyle relay marks. Rowe, who is a swimming specialist, coached the squad.
The girls netball team coached by Joanne Hemsley defeated defending champions St. Christophers of Bahrain (4-2) in the final through some splendid performances from Fan Yu and Hannah Marchon.
DESS won the overall trophy and cash prize of Dh 10,000.
"We will use this money to buy more sports equipment for the school. We are now gearing up for next month's Jumeirah College Swimming Gala. We will start our preparation right away to ensure to defend our title in the next BSME Games," said Rowe.
