News
St George's students collect five medals at 2025 COBIS Games
4 June 2025
Seventeen Secondary students took to the swimming pool, football pitch and athletics field, bagging five medals and a camera full of memories, at the 2025 COBIS Games in Vilnius, Lithuania, from 29 May to 1 June.
DAY 1
Fifteen out of our team of 17 took to the pool to race against seven other schools on day 1. In the morning we had the heats and five St George's swimmers qualified for a final. These were Leo B and Nunu G in 50m butterfly, Axel T in 50m freestyle, Sofia SM in 50m breaststroke and Niovi A in 50m butterfly.
The finals took place after lunch and against very experienced opponents we managed to nab one medal, as Nunu pipped Leo to the bronze in their final. The boys' freestyle team finished just out of the medals position in fourth place, as did the boys' freestyle relay team. The girls' medley finished fifth in a war of attrition. Given that most of our opposing schools have their own pool, it was always going to be a challenge, but St George's never gave up.
DAY 2
At a sunkissed athletics track we spent a long day chasing medals with some great successes. Our first small victory of the day came as JC won his 200m heat to qualify for the final where he ultimately finished sixth. Soon after Sofia SM made the 200m final and also finished sixth.
We had some medal success for first-time contenders, as Tudor took silver in the long jump and bronze in shot put.
Axel gave us a thrill, taking two silver medals in the 1500m and high jump, showing fantastic race strategy in the long-distance run.
The highlight of the day, though, was Leo K’s outstanding 2.25 with a home-straight headwind in the 800m, where he took our only gold to the joy of the whole team.
DAY 3
On the final day of competition as we took to the home of Vilnius FA for football. The boys started by beating Vilnius 5-0 with goals from Eddie and Leo K, where we rotated our team to give experience to those who had not played competitive football before. St George's boys then faced Dubai College and St Catherine's of Greece – who would end up being the finalists for football – and suffered two heavy defeats. JC was amazing in goal through these games and Leo B, Axel and Nunu got some valuable minutes on the field to develop their football experience.
This dropped the boys into the second tier, where they were playing for fifth overall. They started off well in a tense game against Riverbank International School of Nigeria and went ahead through Leo K, but conceded through a late mistake, taking the semi final into penalties. Leo K scored and when the Nigerians missed their first we just needed to score two more to win. Eddie dispatched his confidently and Diego finished the job with a cool penalty to take us to the fifth place final where we would meet Rainbow International School of Uganda. We started this game excellently and two goals from Eddie and one from Leo K took us to victory, although another excellent goalkeeping performance from first-time volunteer keeper JC helped a lot.
The girls started like a house on fire, beating Dubai College 4-1. Captain Sofia SM scored early and Valentina bagged a hat trick, as Amelie in goal showed signs of the amazing performances that were to come. This was followed by a 2-0 win over Vilnius where Lea V defended incredibly with Niovi and Safiya to keep out a strong attacker for the Lithuanians and Sofia SM got both goals to secure the win. Game 3 was perhaps the most impressive against a combination of the two African schools from Uganda and Nigeria. In a physical battle against much taller girls, we defended heroically and Amelie made some outstanding saves (which she credits to her practice against her brother in the garden). We ran out 4-0 winners with Valentina (1) and Sofia SM (3) scoring. The highlight was Sofia’s free kick right into the top corner.
A 4-0 defeat to Athens school Campion after lunch shook the team's confidence, which was followed by two more heavy defeats against Rome and St Catherine's of Athens. This left the girls in fourth overall and just one point outside the medals. Given that many were so new to football, this is a fantastic result – from Sofia P’s fight and tackling in midfield to Niovi and Safiya’s learning how to play in defence there were so many positives to draw upon.
With all events finished, we were whisked to the closing ceremony, presentations and gala dinner. After receiving our medals and applauding defending winners St Catherine’s of Athens, we were treated to a buffet of food and a liberal amount of soft drinks. The students then danced, mingled and chatted the night away with their new friends, exchanging details with promises to stay in touch, in what is one of the nicest aspects of these trips.
– By Arron Lemon, Sports Coordinator
