During the school year 2018/2019 our school was represented by two girls’ teams from the preparatory level in the Qatar Schools Olympic Program. One team participated in basketball while the other in handball competitions.
The tournaments started in November 2018, where our girls were competing against different schools, successfully winning in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd rounds over a period of 4 months. In the meantime, they were training for the final rounds after school on Tuesdays practicing basketball, and on Thursdays handball skills.
Basketball
In April the Schools Olympic Program announced the final list of the 6 best teams which qualified for the Finals.
The basketball final tournament was held over two days on 16th and 17th of April 2019.
The first game played by our team was difficult and on very high level. Until last moments of the game the result remained unsure. Just a few seconds before the final whistle when we were losing 10:11, our youngest player in the team, Alia scored and secured us victory and a place in the semi-final. The result of this quarterfinal was 12:11!
Sadly the semi-final opponent was incredibly strong and even though the girls put all their hearts on the court, they lost 10:16.
The next day,after a good night’s rest and with new motivation came time for the 3rd place game. Our team played hard and put up a great fight against the Gulf International School. The first half finished at 8:8 and the final score after a very tight game was 12-10!
We won the first bronze medal in basketball in our school’s 10 year history!! The award ceremony took place straight after the final game. Huge congratulations to our girls: Zeina, Nadia, Sophie, Lina, Maya, Sarah, Alia and their coaches Mr. André Reichel and Mrs. Marcelina Hörlin.
Handball
We didn’t have to wait long for the handball finals to come. The tournament took place the following Sunday 21st of April and again six best teams played against one another starting from the quarterfinal.
Our team commenced with a fantastic effort and won without any problems 7-1! However, the semifinal game was far from easy for the team. Both teams were stressed and made many mistakes in attack. On the other hand, defense was really strong on both sides. This resulted in a low score of 3:1 for the German School after the final whistle, however it didn’t matter as we qualified to play for the gold medal.
The final game was against Al Wajba Preparatory School for girls which had a strong and well balanced team. The first half of the match exhibited that our team can play really well, unfortunately just 2 small mistakes resulted in a 3:1 score for the opposing team. Nevertheless, the second half showed that the girls didn’t give up, improved in attack and avoided mistakes.
After the final whistle, the result showed 5:3 for our team and the gold was ours for the second year in a row! All the girls played fantastic handball and Farida was chosen the best player of the game by her team mates. Big applause for Yasmina, Farida, Jana R., Jana L., Sarah, Sophia, Julia, Belsam, and the teacher Marcelina Hörlin.
This post is also available in: German