BACK TO BACK KING’S COLLEGE NEWS: COBIS GAMES 2014
Each year the Council of British Independent Schools (COBIS) plan an Olympic-style Games contest, which is hosted at one of the member schools. This year, the Games took place in The British School Al Khubairat in Abu Dhabi, as they were the triumphant winners of the 2013 contest. King’s College pupils attended to represent the school and aim for gold. Head of Physical Education at King’s College, Soto de Viñuelas, Michael Stearman tells us more.
After months of preparation the trip to Istanbul had finally arrived. Pupils and teachers boarded the flight in their new sports’ kit kindly sponsored by the Devere Group and everyone was looking forward to three days of sporting activity in the beautiful city of Istanbul.
After a late team meeting King’s were finally prepared to take on eleven other schools from nations such as the Netherlands, Greece, Germany, Egypt and Kazakhstan. The first day was Athletics and King’s started brightly by winning morning medals in the girls triple jump, silver and bronze for Maria M and Marina D and then Marina added a bronze medal to the collection in the long jump. Ranjana F also added a bronze medal in the Shot Put. Meanwhile, in the boys track events, King’s produced a lot of personal best times and Iñigo M stormed home to a bronze in the tough 400m field.
In the morning field session for the boys, Diego G jumped long, high and tripled for Gold, 4th and Bronze respectively. Paula D added a bronze in the 200m whilst a speedy team of Paula, Maria, Pilar and Ranjana won bronze in the relay. This left King’s in fourth place after the Athletics. 
The second day was our strong sport, football. King’s had high hopes that both teams could produce the Spanish flavoured ‘tiki taka’ in order to bamboozle the opposition. An Alejandro H inspired boys team saw off the hosts 1v0 whilst the girls were held against Altmay. The boys then were shocked 2v3 against a physical Cairo team, whilst Maria’s hattrick saw off St Catherines 4v0. The boys bounced back with a display of total football beating the Netherlands 6v0 with Manuel Ro, Jorge G and Alejandro running the show.
The girls finished off their group games in style destroying Istanbul 6v0, Cairo 3v0 and Netherlands 2v0 to qualify top. The boys were beaten 0v3 by St Catherines and bounced back against Altmay winning 8v0, this meant they missed out on a semi final spot by finishing third, goals against Altmay were notched by Jorge Rodriguez, Edu Perez, Diego Garcia and Iñigo meaning the whole squad scored. It was disappointing but most of the opposition coach commented that the boys played the best football of the tournament and were hindered by the group of death.
The girls marched into the semi final and defeated Luxembourg 1v0 in a tense affair. They faced a strong Moscow side in the final and again a strong defensive display from the rock at the back of Pilar V, Paula D and Amy M meant that Ranjana’s eighth goal of the tournament meant King’s were champions. A special mention must go to Marta S, our goalkeeper, who kept seven clean sheets and was unbeatable. This result left both teams finishing 2nd place overall with a joint goal difference of +27.
The final day was in the pool and King’s had high hopes for our two strong swimmers. Jorge R did not let us down as he entered the pool ten times, as he qualified in all his five finals, the highlight was his storming front crawl gold medal. Manuel R added a bronze in the backstroke and although King’s didn’t add any more medals King’s had over ten top six finishes.
Overall, King’s College finished the competition in third place behind a strong St Catherines team and a Netherlands squad who dominated on the track and field. It was a fun and enjoyable experience for all and both pupils and staff hope to go at least one better in Athens in 2015.
