St George’s achieved their best ever performance in Istanbul by finishing the competition in 3^rd place.

The team of 14 students from Year 7 & 8 competed against 11 other international schools, the vast majority of whom have greater numbers of students to choose from and enjoy far superior sporting facilities which greatly assisted their preparation for the Games.

Despite this, an outstanding performance on day one saw the team win 22 medals in the track and field events meaning we won the cup as the COBIS champions in athletics. This gave the team a huge amount of confidence for the rest of the tournament.

On day two the girl’s football team reached the semi-finals of the football tournament losing to Madrid 1-0 after extra time but took third place with a penalty shoot out victory against St Catherine’s from Athens. The boys lost just one of five matches in their pool but failed to make the semi-finals on goal difference. Overall St George’s placed third and another cup was on its way back to Luxembourg!

In the swimming competition on day three, the schools that had their own pools really benefitted from the advantage of being able to train every day with Istanbul, Athens and the Netherlands all very strong. Sara in Year 7 took an individual gold medal in the back stroke and the girl’s medley relay team took bronze.

The overall team performance across the three events was good enough to take overall third place behind St Catherine’s from Athens and the British School of the Netherlands in the Hague, which is an amazing achievement for the school.