EUROPEAN SCHOOL VARESE EUROSPORT 13/3-16/3 Team 2024 - How did we do ?

Read about Days 1 & 2

Day 3 – BOYS FOOTBALL and GIRLS VOLLEYBALL

We left on Day 2 with Varese top 3 in the overall ranking after a superb Boys Volleyball win and a very good 7^th place ranking at Girls Football. Brussels 1 leading the standings with a day 1, 2^nd and 1^st place respectively.

Friday morning our student-athletes round up at LUXII school @08.30 arriving from their hosting families. Half hour warm up then the games begin.

Both tournaments as per day 2 structured with a round robin of 4 games.
Based on the morning round robin placement in the afternoon the team plays 1-4^th, 5-8^th , 9-12^th , 13-18^th place playoffs.

Football Boys 2x10min halves, tough start then manage a W. On the last game of 4 they come back from behind but on the stroke of full time the opposing side scores. 2W – 2L ->9^th-12^th playoff. Where they win the 1^st game and lose the second ranking them 10^th. Overall 2W-3L

Girls Volleyball starts off better with a 3W – 1L, the loss against the team eventually won the event Alicante. The playoffs for 5-8^th start in the afternoon after lunch with 1W and then 1L this grants them a very good 6^th Spot. Overall 4W-2L

Day 3 sporting activities end @17.30 when they return to their hosting families to get ready for a student party organised by LUXII student committee.

Day 4 – TEAM events: badminton & Aquathlon

Badminton

Saturday 16/3 starts @07.30 with badminton. Again round robin 3 games in the early morning then 2 before lunch. Each game is made up of 3 sets Doubles Boys, 3 Sets Doubles girls, 3 sets Mixed team. Varese qualify for the 5-8^th spot play offs. Play off start with a L then a tight second match ends up with a W. Overall 3W-2L grants a 7^th Place.

Aquathlon

In the afternoon…Aquathlon. The race is set as 600m run – transition to swim – 75m swim – transition to run – 400m run then the leg band gets strapped off and on to the next relay athlete. Altogether for 20 athletes alternating girl boy girl boy…

This event bears double points, if all other events give 18 point to the winner and 1 point to last place, Aquathlon provides 36 to the winning team and 2 to last place.

Varese start well, they are top 5/6 in the 1^st leg, 2^nd leg climb up a spot, 3^rd leg another position gained, 4^th leg again one more positioned gained, 5^th leg neck to neck with the 1^st place.. 6^th leg Varese is now breaking away!
From then the 7^th leg on every single athlete added a little piece of win by distancing the opposition. When the 20^th relay arrives Varese are clocking over 2mins advantage on 2^nd place Alicante.
Varese cross the final finish line as Aquathlon winners with a dominating team effort.

Where the other teams end up decides where Varese ends up in the Overall standings.

Watch the last Varese relay athlete crossing the finish line solo

Final Ceremony

At the Final ceremony a little confusion on the scoring but eventually out of the 18 participating SCHOOLS…

1^st LUX1: 101 points
2^nd VARESE: 100
3^rd ALICANTE: 99

VARESE end up 2^nd overall just 1 point from the winners!!!
Although the team was disappointed this is an incredible achievement and BIG BIG KUDOS to athletes and coaches!